Sony Vaio GRT Series.

I emailed the groups a little over a month ago. Here's the original
link:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...nux.networking

I wanted to give an update of what i've found (successes & failures)
and see if anybody has any similar experiences on failures. When I
get another free second I will post this information on
linux-on-laptops.com.

My main concern was that the integrated pci wireless lan would not be
a clean install & work correctly. I got it to work ( i had to play
around with this since i'd never done it before), it took me a couple
tries and some research. I followed the following steps.

Success: WLAN

the mini-pci adapter is an intersil/harris prism2_pci. so i downloaded
the wlan-ng sources. First time through I f*d it up. In the
..Configure script I installed both the native and the other pci
drivers. That was a no go, so i had to start over and second time
through I just installed the native drivers. There are some other
steps that I had to correct (like moving over the .config from the src
tree) and other quickly fixable errors in compilation. I followed the
readme, after i installed the sources i picked up at

modprobe prism2_pci
wland-ctl commands in the readme document

I do not have it setup to receive dhcp yet ( manually hardcoding it
works fine for me right now ). I did not have to alter the /etc/wlan/
scripts at all it picked up my ssid fine.

Success: DUAL BOOT.

Luckily my laptop had two partitions already from sony, and winxp was
all on the first one, so i just whipped the second half during the
linux install. I used Redhat 9, and I did not experience any problems
during install.

Success: DVD-R/CD-R.

I have burnt a couple data CD's with out to much of a headache. Just
drop a blank disk in the drive and a Burner window pops right up.
Talking about awesome. Just like windows easy to use, but with a real
os.

Success: FIREWIRE

It says it is working properly, I haven't had a need to test it yet.

Success: DISPLAY

x is running without a problem the display is 1400x1050 i believe, I
am just using a generic laptop display. I couldn't find the specific
lcd screen. This suits my needs. and the display is still brilliant
on the 16in screen.

Failure: SOUND

This is pretty disappointing that this is not working, worst than that
if it attempts to make a sound it locks the os & and i have to turn it
off. i'm thinking this is an IRQ problem but haven't been able to
trace it any further than that ( and don't know what to look for ). I
found 1 other article on the web where someone has a sony and is
experiencing the same problem however, they have not fixed it either?
so anybody have any ideas what to do? even playing the sound
detection locks up the box.

Failure: Battery Monitor

I haven't had time to research this, but I do not see the power
battery monitor tool anywhere. On my Sony Vaio fx220 it was there
(redhat 7.2)? any ideas?

Failure: USB

On bootup I'm receiving a usb hci irq conflict error - I have no idea
what this is?? I can post a more exact error when I get in front of
the box, if someone would be interested in helping me resolve this?


Well I hope other people find my findings useful, and hopefully I will
be pointed in a resolvable direction for my outstanding failures.

Thanks everyone,

Chris

Hi. I just bought the GRT170 a few days ago and tried to install
RedHat Linux 9 alongside Windows XP. I think dual-booting works
properly since the GRUB bootloader screen comes up at startup like
it's supposed to, but when I choose Linux, I get a blank screen.
Judging by what I've read so far, I think it's a problem with the
graphics card drivers; during installation, instead of leaving the
generic driver selected, stupid me chose the NVIDIA GeForce FX driver
from the list. My question is: how exactly do I fix this without
starting all over again? I downloaded updated Linux drivers from
NVIDIA's website but I have no idea exactly what to do with them. I'm
a complete newbie here, so some step-by-step help would be very much
appreciated.

Thanks,

Sabir

(E-Mail Removed) (Chris) wrote in message news:<(E-Mail Removed). com>...
> I emailed the groups a little over a month ago. Here's the original
> link:
>
> http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...nux.networking
>
> I wanted to give an update of what i've found (successes & failures)
> and see if anybody has any similar experiences on failures. When I
> get another free second I will post this information on
> linux-on-laptops.com.
>
> My main concern was that the integrated pci wireless lan would not be
> a clean install & work correctly. I got it to work ( i had to play
> around with this since i'd never done it before), it took me a couple
> tries and some research. I followed the following steps.
>
> Success: WLAN
>
> the mini-pci adapter is an intersil/harris prism2_pci. so i downloaded
> the wlan-ng sources. First time through I f*d it up. In the
> .Configure script I installed both the native and the other pci
> drivers. That was a no go, so i had to start over and second time
> through I just installed the native drivers. There are some other
> steps that I had to correct (like moving over the .config from the src
> tree) and other quickly fixable errors in compilation. I followed the
> readme, after i installed the sources i picked up at
>
> modprobe prism2_pci
> wland-ctl commands in the readme document
>
> I do not have it setup to receive dhcp yet ( manually hardcoding it
> works fine for me right now ). I did not have to alter the /etc/wlan/
> scripts at all it picked up my ssid fine.
>
> Success: DUAL BOOT.
>
> Luckily my laptop had two partitions already from sony, and winxp was
> all on the first one, so i just whipped the second half during the
> linux install. I used Redhat 9, and I did not experience any problems
> during install.
>
> Success: DVD-R/CD-R.
>
> I have burnt a couple data CD's with out to much of a headache. Just
> drop a blank disk in the drive and a Burner window pops right up.
> Talking about awesome. Just like windows easy to use, but with a real
> os.
>
> Success: FIREWIRE
>
> It says it is working properly, I haven't had a need to test it yet.
>
> Success: DISPLAY
>
> x is running without a problem the display is 1400x1050 i believe, I
> am just using a generic laptop display. I couldn't find the specific
> lcd screen. This suits my needs. and the display is still brilliant
> on the 16in screen.
>
> Failure: SOUND
>
> This is pretty disappointing that this is not working, worst than that
> if it attempts to make a sound it locks the os & and i have to turn it
> off. i'm thinking this is an IRQ problem but haven't been able to
> trace it any further than that ( and don't know what to look for ). I
> found 1 other article on the web where someone has a sony and is
> experiencing the same problem however, they have not fixed it either?
> so anybody have any ideas what to do? even playing the sound
> detection locks up the box.
>
> Failure: Battery Monitor
>
> I haven't had time to research this, but I do not see the power
> battery monitor tool anywhere. On my Sony Vaio fx220 it was there
> (redhat 7.2)? any ideas?
>
> Failure: USB
>
> On bootup I'm receiving a usb hci irq conflict error - I have no idea
> what this is?? I can post a more exact error when I get in front of
> the box, if someone would be interested in helping me resolve this?
>
>
> Well I hope other people find my findings useful, and hopefully I will
> be pointed in a resolvable direction for my outstanding failures.
>
> Thanks everyone,
>
> Chris

I have almost the exact same laptop as you. I bought it about 3 weeks
ago and I've been trying to get linux to work properly. From the sounds
of it, I think we both might have different parts of the puzzle.

My main source of difficulty is getting the PCMCIA to work properly. It
loads properly in the base kernel the come with rh9 but I can't get it
to detect my wireless card (Orinoco Gold 802.11b). Its supposed to use
the wavelan_cs driver but it doesn't seem to work. I originally thought
it used the orinoco_cs driver but not according to the PROXIM site.

I fixed the usb and sound issues by going to a newer kernel. I've tried
both the 2.4.21 and the 2.4.22 kernel. In both cases I was able to get
the usb to work properly as well as the sound, but I have pcmcia
problems. Since the CDROM somehow works through the same bus it stops
working properly. I tried adding apic support to the kernel but that
didn't help.

I'm pretty sure that if you upgrade your kernel, you'll fix the sound
and USB. The question is how to fix the PCMCIA. Any info as to your
successes/failures and your methods would be much appreciated. I'm
determined to getting rh9 working on this laptop. I know it can be done,
I'm just not sure how exactly.

Julian

Chris wrote:
> I emailed the groups a little over a month ago. Here's the original
> link:
>
> http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...nux.networking
>
> I wanted to give an update of what i've found (successes & failures)
> and see if anybody has any similar experiences on failures. When I
> get another free second I will post this information on
> linux-on-laptops.com.
>
> My main concern was that the integrated pci wireless lan would not be
> a clean install & work correctly. I got it to work ( i had to play
> around with this since i'd never done it before), it took me a couple
> tries and some research. I followed the following steps.
>
> Success: WLAN
>
> the mini-pci adapter is an intersil/harris prism2_pci. so i downloaded
> the wlan-ng sources. First time through I f*d it up. In the
> .Configure script I installed both the native and the other pci
> drivers. That was a no go, so i had to start over and second time
> through I just installed the native drivers. There are some other
> steps that I had to correct (like moving over the .config from the src
> tree) and other quickly fixable errors in compilation. I followed the
> readme, after i installed the sources i picked up at
>
> modprobe prism2_pci
> wland-ctl commands in the readme document
>
> I do not have it setup to receive dhcp yet ( manually hardcoding it
> works fine for me right now ). I did not have to alter the /etc/wlan/
> scripts at all it picked up my ssid fine.
>
> Success: DUAL BOOT.
>
> Luckily my laptop had two partitions already from sony, and winxp was
> all on the first one, so i just whipped the second half during the
> linux install. I used Redhat 9, and I did not experience any problems
> during install.
>
> Success: DVD-R/CD-R.
>
> I have burnt a couple data CD's with out to much of a headache. Just
> drop a blank disk in the drive and a Burner window pops right up.
> Talking about awesome. Just like windows easy to use, but with a real
> os.
>
> Success: FIREWIRE
>
> It says it is working properly, I haven't had a need to test it yet.
>
> Success: DISPLAY
>
> x is running without a problem the display is 1400x1050 i believe, I
> am just using a generic laptop display. I couldn't find the specific
> lcd screen. This suits my needs. and the display is still brilliant
> on the 16in screen.
>
> Failure: SOUND
>
> This is pretty disappointing that this is not working, worst than that
> if it attempts to make a sound it locks the os & and i have to turn it
> off. i'm thinking this is an IRQ problem but haven't been able to
> trace it any further than that ( and don't know what to look for ). I
> found 1 other article on the web where someone has a sony and is
> experiencing the same problem however, they have not fixed it either?
> so anybody have any ideas what to do? even playing the sound
> detection locks up the box.
>
> Failure: Battery Monitor
>
> I haven't had time to research this, but I do not see the power
> battery monitor tool anywhere. On my Sony Vaio fx220 it was there
> (redhat 7.2)? any ideas?
>
> Failure: USB
>
> On bootup I'm receiving a usb hci irq conflict error - I have no idea
> what this is?? I can post a more exact error when I get in front of
> the box, if someone would be interested in helping me resolve this?
>
>
> Well I hope other people find my findings useful, and hopefully I will
> be pointed in a resolvable direction for my outstanding failures.
>
> Thanks everyone,
>
> Chris

>
> Chris wrote:
>
>> I emailed the groups a little over a month ago. Here's the original
>> link:
>>
>> http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...nux.networking
>>
>>
>> I wanted to give an update of what i've found (successes & failures)
>> and see if anybody has any similar experiences on failures. When I
>> get another free second I will post this information on
>> linux-on-laptops.com.
>>
>> My main concern was that the integrated pci wireless lan would not be
>> a clean install & work correctly. I got it to work ( i had to play
>> around with this since i'd never done it before), it took me a couple
>> tries and some research. I followed the following steps.
>>
>> Success: WLAN
>>
>> the mini-pci adapter is an intersil/harris prism2_pci. so i downloaded
>> the wlan-ng sources. First time through I f*d it up. In the
>> .Configure script I installed both the native and the other pci
>> drivers. That was a no go, so i had to start over and second time
>> through I just installed the native drivers. There are some other
>> steps that I had to correct (like moving over the .config from the src
>> tree) and other quickly fixable errors in compilation. I followed the
>> readme, after i installed the sources i picked up at
>>
>> modprobe prism2_pci
>> wland-ctl commands in the readme document
>>
>> I do not have it setup to receive dhcp yet ( manually hardcoding it
>> works fine for me right now ). I did not have to alter the /etc/wlan/
>> scripts at all it picked up my ssid fine.
>>
>> Success: DUAL BOOT.
>>
>> Luckily my laptop had two partitions already from sony, and winxp was
>> all on the first one, so i just whipped the second half during the
>> linux install. I used Redhat 9, and I did not experience any problems
>> during install.
>>
>> Success: DVD-R/CD-R.
>>
>> I have burnt a couple data CD's with out to much of a headache. Just
>> drop a blank disk in the drive and a Burner window pops right up.
>> Talking about awesome. Just like windows easy to use, but with a real
>> os.
>>
>> Success: FIREWIRE
>>
>> It says it is working properly, I haven't had a need to test it yet.
>>
>> Success: DISPLAY
>>
>> x is running without a problem the display is 1400x1050 i believe, I
>> am just using a generic laptop display. I couldn't find the specific
>> lcd screen. This suits my needs. and the display is still brilliant
>> on the 16in screen.
>>
>> Failure: SOUND
>>
>> This is pretty disappointing that this is not working, worst than that
>> if it attempts to make a sound it locks the os & and i have to turn it
>> off. i'm thinking this is an IRQ problem but haven't been able to
>> trace it any further than that ( and don't know what to look for ). I
>> found 1 other article on the web where someone has a sony and is
>> experiencing the same problem however, they have not fixed it either?
>> so anybody have any ideas what to do? even playing the sound
>> detection locks up the box.
>>
>> Failure: Battery Monitor
>>
>> I haven't had time to research this, but I do not see the power
>> battery monitor tool anywhere. On my Sony Vaio fx220 it was there
>> (redhat 7.2)? any ideas?
>>
>> Failure: USB
>>
>> On bootup I'm receiving a usb hci irq conflict error - I have no idea
>> what this is?? I can post a more exact error when I get in front of
>> the box, if someone would be interested in helping me resolve this?
>>
>>
>> Well I hope other people find my findings useful, and hopefully I will
>> be pointed in a resolvable direction for my outstanding failures.
>>
>> Thanks everyone,
>>
>> Chris
>


Julian wrote:

> I have almost the exact same laptop as you. I bought it about 3 weeks
> ago and I've been trying to get linux to work properly. From the sounds
> of it, I think we both might have different parts of the puzzle.
>
> My main source of difficulty is getting the PCMCIA to work properly. It
> loads properly in the base kernel the come with rh9 but I can't get it
> to detect my wireless card (Orinoco Gold 802.11b). Its supposed to use
> the wavelan_cs driver but it doesn't seem to work. I originally thought
> it used the orinoco_cs driver but not according to the PROXIM site.
>
> I fixed the usb and sound issues by going to a newer kernel. I've tried
> both the 2.4.21 and the 2.4.22 kernel. In both cases I was able to get
> the usb to work properly as well as the sound, but I have pcmcia
> problems. Since the CDROM somehow works through the same bus it stops
> working properly. I tried adding apic support to the kernel but that
> didn't help.
>
> I'm pretty sure that if you upgrade your kernel, you'll fix the sound
> and USB. The question is how to fix the PCMCIA. Any info as to your
> successes/failures and your methods would be much appreciated. I'm
> determined to getting rh9 working on this laptop. I know it can be done,
> I'm just not sure how exactly.
>
> Julian

So I'm still working on the same problem. I've been trying to get my
wireless card to work and that is taking a bit of effort. With the
2.4.22 kernel, I've resolved a lot of issues. I've got the PCMCIA
working properly. I fixed it by downloading and installing the pcmcia-cs
from Sourceforge. I've got USB and Sound working.

Current problems. I get no sound from audio CDs. I don't know why that
is. I would think that if the sound works and the cdrom works then I
should get the sound from it. I can play MP3s and other audio files so
I'm positive the sound works. I can mount and read data CDs so I know
the cdrom works. Anyone have this problem?

I also can't get the driver for my wireless card to work. Anyone have
any succes with the Proxim Orinoco Gold Card (8420-WD)? Its got an Agere
chipset. They've got drivers on their site that link in to the pcmcia-cs
package but whenever it detects the card, the driver fails. Modprobe
claims it was compiled by a version 2 compiler while my kernel was
compiled with a version 3. Makes no sense to me but if anyone has an
idea let me know.

I'll keep trying.

Julian