Warning: This information comes with no warranty. Use at your own risk.
I no longer own this laptop so I'm unable to answer questions.
| Distribution | Fedora Core 1 | works |
| Processor | Intel 900 Mhz Mobile Celeron | works |
| RAM | 128 MB PC100 SDRAM (512 MB Max) | works |
| Chipset | Intel 815EM | works |
| Display | 14.1" TFT 1024 x 768 | works |
| Graphics Adapter | Integrated Intel 815EM Graphics Chip | works |
| Sound | Integrated Intel 815EM AC97 | works |
| Hard Disk | Toshiba 15 GB ATA/IDE | works |
| Optical Drive | Matshita CD-RW/DVD Combo | works |
| Ethernet | Integrated 10BASE-T/100BASE-TX | works but see notes |
| Modem | Conexant Integrated V.90/K56flex Winmodem | works but see notes |
| Pointing Device | Two Button Touch Pad | works |
| USB | Two ports (UHCI) | works but see notes |
| PCMCIA | 2 type II or 1 type III | works |
| Battery | Lithium-ion (PCGA-BP1N) | works |
| i.LINK (aka IEEE 1394, FireWire) | S400 4-pin | untested |
| Power Management | ACPI | works but see notes |
| Floppy Drive | Removable 1.44 MB, 3.5" | untested |
I'm currently running Fedora Core 1 with the stock kernel. The installation went smoothly, but I had to enable ACPI manually.
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 8 model name : Celeron (Coppermine) stepping : 10 cpu MHz : 894.294 cache size : 128 KB fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 2 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse bogomips : 1782.57
The machine has two memory slots, supporting a maximum of 512 MB RAM. It came with a single 128 MB memory module and I purchased an additional 256 MB for a total of 384 MB.
I bought the additional RAM from Coast to Coast Memory and followed their recommendation, which was for PC133 SDRAM SODIMMs.
The VAIO manual says to use PC100 (CL2) SDRAM SODIMMs.
Toshiba model MK1517GAP 15 GB ATA/IDE
The disk came with two partitions; one held Windows XP Home Edition and the other was empty. This was convenient since I was able to delete the empty partition and install Linux on it without affecting Windows.
$ /sbin/hdparm /dev/hda /dev/hda: multcount = 16 (on) IO_support = 3 (32-bit w/sync) unmaskirq = 0 (off) using_dma = 1 (on) keepsettings = 0 (off) readonly = 0 (off) readahead = 8 (on) geometry = 1836/255/63, sectors = 29498112, start = 0 $ /sbin/hdparm -Tt /dev/hda /dev/hda: Timing buffer-cache reads: 476 MB in 2.01 seconds = 236.82 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 60 MB in 3.00 seconds = 20.00 MB/sec
I enabled 32-bit I/O transfers by editing /etc/sysconfig/harddiskhda (copied from /etc/sysconfig/harddisks):
$ diff -u /etc/sysconfig/harddisks /etc/sysconfig/harddiskhda --- /etc/sysconfig/harddisks 2003-06-05 14:23:32.000000000 -0700 +++ /etc/sysconfig/harddiskhda 2003-11-28 14:58:47.000000000 -0800 @@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ # (E)IDE 32-bit I/O support (to interface card) # -# EIDE_32BIT=3 +EIDE_32BIT=3 # Enable drive read-lookahead #
Matshita model UJDA710 CD-RW/DVD combo drive; 8x CD-R, 4x CD-RW, 24x CDROM, 8x DVD
Note that this drive is region locked (RPC-2) and that there's currently no known way to disable it.
The drive is manufactured by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., also known as Matsushita Kotobuki Electronics Industries, Ltd., or better known in the U.S. as Panasonic.
I haven't tried it with Fedora yet, but with Red Hat 7.2 I successfully burned CD-Rs using cdrecord and watched DVDs with Ogle.
Integrated 10BASE-T/100BASE-TX ethernet
I had some initial trouble transferring large files. The driver would complain about timeouts and the connections would hang.
Thanks to Jan Slupski, I learned this was due to the sleep mode being enabled on the card. I fetched the eepro100-diag.c utility and followed Jan's instructions. First I verified that sleep mode was enabled by examining the output of:
$ ./eepro100-diag -e -e f ... Sleep mode is enabled. This is not recommended. Under high load the card may not respond to PCI requests, and thus cause a master abort.
Then I disabled sleep mode with the command:
$ ./eepro100-diag -G -w -w -w -f
The timeouts vanished and I haven't experienced any problems since.
Conexant Integrated V.90/K56flex Winmodem
I haven't tested it with Fedora, but I had it working with Red Hat 7.2 using the Conexant HSF driver.
USB works fine once ACPI is enabled. My USB mouse didn't require any additional configuration.
I'm using a NetGear MA401 802.11b wireless PC Card.
I had to enable ACPI by adding the acpi=on boot parameter to /etc/grub.conf:
$ diff -u /tmp/grub.conf.orig /etc/grub.conf
--- /tmp/grub.conf.orig 2003-11-28 03:24:13.000000000 -0800
+++ /etc/grub.conf 2003-11-15 16:16:18.000000000 -0800
@@ -12,5 +12,5 @@
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Fedora Core (2.4.22-1.2115.nptl)
root (hd0,0)
- kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi rhgb
+ kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi rhgb acpi=on
initrd /initrd-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl.img