On Wed, May 09, 2001 at 04:34:41PM -0500, J.R. Blain wrote: > We are looking at purchasing a few laptops for the office, and are > considering Sony VAIO's. Does anyone have any experience with them > running debian? Potential problems? Suggestions on models/addons? I have a VAIO PCG-F650, which is currently tracking unstable (bleeding edge) Debian. It was a bit of a pain to get going, but I've learned quite a bit. Sound works, using the YMFPCI kernel driver (2.4.4 seems to work much better than 2.2.18) USB was quite easy to get going after a kernel compile. The Winmodem doesn't work. Yet. But, you can easily use a PCMCIA modem if you need one. Networking was pretty easy - just make sure you get a PCMCIA network card that's supported out-of-the-box, unlike my Linksys 10/100 Cardbus (which I thought would be OK, but didn't get detected by the installer. Bleh. After downloading kernel sources and pcmcia-cs from Windows, and compiling my own kernel, it waqs fine, but it might be a major pain for someone new to the process) Anyone know if the Netgear CB card works out-of-the-box? (I know it uses the tulip driver, and I've always had very good luck with Netgear cards in my desktop machines) The video card (ATI Rage Mobility) is well supported - I didn't have a problem getting it going under XFree86 3.3.6 (mach64 server) or 4.0.3 (ati driver) - If you plan on using any of the framebuffer console modes (which I highly recommend) you'll want 4.0.3, as 3.3.6 runs DOG slow on top of a framebuffer. I'm in the process of getting DVD playback going with OMS - but I'm not quite there yet. (getting warmer though! Now I just have to fix the aspect ratio and sound skipping =) ) Once that's done, the only thing I'll need to reboot for is Diablo II ;) The first "upgrade" I'd suggest is to replace the stock 64MB ram with 256MB - I got mine from http://www.crucial.com (which I believe is run by Micron), and it's made all the difference in the world. Before, it was a bit pokey - now it flies. -b3 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
