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by Tilo Sloboda, last update: 02 Sept 2004 15 September 2004 , created Oct 1998

RedHat LINUX on SONY VAIO PCG-808, PCG-818 and PCG-838 Laptops

Even if your computer is not a PCG-8x8, but uses similar hardware (NeoMagic 256AV chipset), this page might be helpful for you.
e.g. some people with the new SONY VAIO F-series or 505's found this very helpful too.

I use LINUX on laptops since 1992, when I bought my first no-name 486 laptop (no Micro$oft software on my machines!). Since then I installed LINUX on quite a lot of PCs and laptops, and while I was working for SONY.. on several SONY desktop PCs (PCV-E201,..) and laptops.

Luckily these days you don't have to install LINUX from a huge stack of about 50+ floppies anymore, but can conveniently install from CD-ROM. =-)

See update on Upgrading from 2.4 to 2.6 kernel (2 Sept 2004)
See update on Installing RedHat 6.1
See update on Upgrading to RedHat 6.0
See update on 24-Bit color mode
See update on CardBus/PCMCIA support
See update on Disabling Gnome / KDE
See update on Using two grafics cards + two monitors! (on a regular desktop machine of course)

SONY PCG-808 Specifications

266 MHz Pentium II CPU, 13.3" XGA Active Matrix LCD (1024 x 768), 64 MB RAM (expandable to 192 MB max.), 4 GB Harddisk, 24x CD-ROM, Built-in Stealth 3D stereo speakers, TV output.

Graphics Chip

NeoMagic MagicMedia 256AV with 2.5 MB Video RAM and 128 bit Accelerator

Audio

Sound Blaster Compatible

Modem

K56flex Modem/Fax (software upgradeable to V.90)

Drive Bracket for second harddrive

You might have noticed that the harddrive of the SONY laptops is swapable, but it's really difficult to get a second hard drive for it.

In case you wanted to buy a 'naked' 2.5" EIDE hard drive and put it in a drive bracket: it's even harder to get that part.
Recently I have found the part number for that drive assembly: A-8044-303-A (without disk)
Thank you Delmar!

SONY PCG-838 Specifications

The main advantage of the PCG-838 over the PCG-808 is the faster CPU (366 MHz PentiumII), the larger hard drive (6.4 GB), and it's 2x DVD-ROM drive. Both laptops come with 64MB RAM, and use the same Grafics Chip: NeoMagic MagicMedia 256AV with 2.5 MB Video RAM and 128 bit Accelerator

LINUX Installation

Maybe you'll need to look for extra stuff on one of the RedHat FTP Mirrors

Upgrading from 2.4 kernel to 2.6 kernel

I don't own the SONY VAIO PCG-808 anymore, but ...

A big thanks to Bill Dudley, who provided me with the following email regarding the kernel upgrade from 2.4 to 2.6 and the changes necessary to make it work:

• 2.4 kernel loads sb.o driver with arguments you have on your web page: sb irq=5 io=0x220 dma=1 mpu_io=0x320 dma16=5
• 2.6 kernel needs the snd-ess1688.ko driver with similar arguments. \ Please see the excerpt from the modules.conf file below for details..
• USB support worked fine in late 2.4 kernels, but I haven't gotten it running in 2.6.7.
• built in PS/2 "mouse" has also stopped working in 2.6.7 kernel.

Here is Bill's modules.conf file for the 2.6 kernel:

		# ALSA portion
		alias char-major-116 snd
		alias snd-card-0 snd-es1688
                options snd-ex1688 port=0x220 irq=5 dma1=1 dma2=5 mpu_port=0

		# module options should go here

		# OSS/Free portion
		alias char-major-14 soundcore
		alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0

		# card #1
		alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
		alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
		alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
		alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
		alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

		# OSS/Free portion - card #1
		alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
		alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
		alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
		alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
		alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
		alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

Installing Red Hat 6.1

When installing RedHat LINUX 6.1 you might have to select 'expert text' at the command line prompt.

Upgrading to Red Hat 6.0

Be aware that the 6.0 upgrade/installation will automatically install either the new Desktop Environment "GNOME" or "KDE" on your laptop.. you will have to put in some work after upgrading in case you want to change this back to just using fvwm2.

After upgrading from Red Hat LINUX 5.2 to 6.0 I experienced one problem when trying to open x-windows (e.g. an xterm) within my window manager (fvwm2). I got the error message: "xterm: no available ptys" and the window didn't open.

To fix this problem for the current session, you have to manually mount:

       mount -t devpts none /dev/pts

And for the future, add the following line to your /etc/fstab file:

       none      /dev/pts     devpts  rw     0 0

Otherwise it won't be remounted at reboot.

New Installation of 5.2 or 6.0

When installing 5.2 or 6.0 from scratch, make sure that you follow the following steps

Disk Partitioning

I repartitioned the hard disk with fdisk under LINUX without trouble..
But be aware: There's a 200MB (?) disk partition with id 0xa0 (hex A0) -- DO NOT CHANGE/MODIFY it !!
This disk partition is the last one on the hard drive and it has to be partition number 4

The partition layout of your disk should look something like this:


          Device Boot    Start      End   Blocks   Id  System
       /dev/hda1   *         1      909     ?      83  Linux native
       /dev/hda2           910      942     ?      82  Linux swap
       /dev/hda4           943      992   201600   a0  unknown
 

You should see some number in stead of the question marks.

IMPORTANT: DO NOT REMOVE OR MODIFY the already existing 200 MB partition!!! CREATE IT, if you have a new hard disk!
The PCG-808 needs this partition to dump it's memory contents in case the battery becomes too weak during hybernation mode!

I don't need to add a BLINK tag, do I? You got the idea, right? ;-) Make SHURE you have this 200MB partition with id 0xA0

Believe it of not, someone I know read this page and still forgot to create that partition..
and later he had to re-partition and re-install everything.. outch!! =-|

Video / XFree86 driver for NeoMagic 256AV

For video, I used RedHat/Precision Insight's XFree86 driver. (THANKS a lot to Jens Owen at Precision Insight for updating the driver that quickly!)

on Thu, 19 Aug 1999 Jens Owen, PrecisionInsight, wrote:

The NeoMagic driver has been part of XFree86 for at least 2 distributions of Red Hat. No need for a special server.

I use it with full XGA resolution (1024x768) on the LCD and also with (1600x1200) on my external 21 inch monitor.

Please have a look at the XFree Web Site for new versions of the X-driver and for Available Documentation -- especially NeoMagic related Documentation. This is the pointer to the Version 3.3.5 binaries.

XF86Config files

The file /etc/X11/XF86Config contains the configuration of your X-Server and a description of which screen resolutions your monitor can support.

This is my original XF86Config file for my PCG-808, and this is my XF86Config file for high screen resolutions which I use on my 21" monitor (listing modes for "1280x1024" "1440x1152" "1600x1200" "1800x1440"). I love tiny fonts ;-)

24-bit Color Mode

Maybe you also want to use your screen in 24-bit color resolution? That would be quite nice, wouldn't it?


With RedHat 6.x

Edit the bottom of /etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf as follows:

    [servers]
    0=/usr/bin/X11/X -bpp 32
    #1=/usr/bin/X11/X
 

With RedHat 5.x

Edit /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers as follows:

    #
    :0 local /usr/X11R6/bin/X -bpp 24
 

For some configurations your X-driver may need -bpp 32 to enable 24-bit color.
And use the XF86Config file from above.

Using two grafics cards and two monitors..

Of course this is not intended for laptops -- it's too hard to force a second grafic card into them =-) But i thought I'd add this here, hoping people might find it useful for configuring their LINUX-desktop machines..

Edit the bottom of /etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf as follows:

    [servers]
    0=/usr/bin/X11/X -bpp 32
    1=/usr/bin/X11/X -bpp 32
 

..for both grafic cards running in 32-bit or 24-bit resolution.. otherwise the default is 8 bit. Depending if you set your DISPLAY environment variable to localhost:0.0 or localhost:0.1, the windows will go to one or the other screen.. =-)

Automatically starting X

Here's a small tip on how to start your X-driver automatically (without having to type startx all the time).

ONLY do this when you are finished playing around with your X-configuration file!!

Edit the file /etc/inittab and set the default runlevel to 5

     # Default runlevel. The runlevels used by RHS are:
     #   0 - halt (Do NOT set initdefault to this)
     #   1 - Single user mode
     #   2 - Multiuser, without NFS (The same as 3, if you do not have networking)
     #   3 - Full multiuser mode
     #   4 - unused
     #   5 - X11
     #   6 - reboot (Do NOT set initdefault to this)
     # 
 
     # id:3:initdefault:
     id:5:initdefault:
 

You can also set a nice default background picture by editing the file /etc/X11/xdm/Xsetup_0, e.g. as follows:

     #!/bin/sh
     # $XConsortium: Xsetup_0,v 1.3 93/09/28 14:30:31 gildea Exp $
     /usr/X11R6/bin/xconsole -geometry 480x130-0-0 -daemon -notify -verbose -fn fixed -exitOnFail
     #
     # use your favourite picture here ---------------\
     #                                                 V
     /usr/X11R6/bin/xv -root -ncols 16 -quit  -max  /etc/X11/xdm/NY_breakfast.jpg
     # /usr/X11R6/bin/xbanner
 

No Gnome/KDE in Red Hat 6.0 and 6.1

In the recent RedHat versions 6+ you have the choice of either using Gnome or KDE as a default window manager and you have to make that choice during installation. These new RedHat versions use gdm instead of xdm.. see /etc/X11/gdm .. Unfortunately there are no hints whatsoever in the Gnome and/or KDE documentation telling you how to get rid of these window managers.
Desperately looking through the configuration files, I found two ways to force gdm to use the window manager of my choice..
..resistance is futile!!
Why all the hastle?
Personally I don't like either Gnome or KDE, which are certainly nice if you come from a Windows background, but I prefer the much leaner fvwm window manager, which has a nice virtual workspace handling and doesn't consume that much valuable screen real-estate!

Fvwm Resource File

Here's my .fvwmrc file -- just copy it and rename it to ~/.fvwmrc. If you want to make it the default .fvwmrc file for all users on your machine, then copy it to: /etc/X11/fvwm/system.fvwmrc

Method 1 to disable Gnome/KDE

To make fvwm (or any other window manager) your default, do the following

   # cat > ~/.xinitrc
   fvwm
   CTRL-D
   #

In other words, you just put 'fvwm' in your ~/.xinitrc file -- for root in has to be under /root of course.

Method 2 to disable Gnome/KDE

Sometimes the simple method above doesn't seem to work, and I didn't want to reverse-engineer the gdm/Gnome setup, so I just quickly hacked this: (and it works..!)

   > cat > ~/.Xclients
   # force file ~/.Xclients to tell gdm which window manager to start..
   #
   # PLEASE don't give me gnome/kde - but rather start fvwm 

    if [ -f /usr/X11R6/bin/fvwm ]; then
        exec fvwm
    else
        exec twm
    fi
   > chmod u+x  ~/.Xclients

Don't forget to make ~/.Xclients executable, or it won't work!!

And don't forget to clean up.. he he!

   > cd ~
   > rm -rf .gnome* enlightenment*
   >

Audio

on Fri 19 Feb 1999 David Wood wrote:

The audio controller in the SONY VAIO PCG-808 Laptop is in fact also the MagicMedia 256AV. If you look up the MagicMedia 256AV site at NeoMagic, you'll find that the MagicMedia is an integrated 2D/3D/DVD MPEG/Audio controller chip that won several technical excellence awards. Now if we can only get a good working driver for it into the 2.2 kernel build we'll be set.

on Thu 3 Jun 1999 Brad Bosch wrote:

[...] I Just thought I would drop you a quick note to let you know the the standard Linux 2.2 drivers recognize the sound card as an ES1688 which does support 16 bit sound.

I have been using a variety of Linux Mp3 players and the driver seems to support 44.1 kHz stereo 16 bit sound on this notebook quite nicely. I haven't tested full duplex, but the driver source says it is supported. MS Windows as shipped with the notebook implies the chip is a ES1879 which sounds possible since the NeoMagic web page says, that a companion chip (NM3298) is required for soundblaster compatibility. Apparently, either Sony chose to use the ESS chip instead, or the NM8298 is software compatible with or is a second source for the ESS chip.
At any rate, 16 bit sound output seems to work fine as does the mixer.

Here are the modules and options I use with my self-compiled kernel and Debian 2.1:

 	soundlow
	soundcore
	sound
	uart401
	sb irq=5 io=0x220 dma=1 mpu_io=0x320 dma16=5

Modem

I have used the 'control-panel' to configure and start-up ppp
I also have used the modem with "minicom" , which also worked fine.

IR port

Haven't used it yet.. I recently got a PalmPilot V with IR port...
So if anybody out there has some experience with using the IR-port under LINUX, please send me email and I will include your comments here..

USB port

Unfortunately not yet supported ... but I heared Linus is working on it.. =-)

Video-out port

haven't used it ever..

Power Management

Works fine! Although I had to rebuild the kernel and modules, and had to switch on the support for power management..
As I left alone the hybernation disk partition, the hybernation mode works without any problems ;-)

See /usr/src/linux/README on what to do, to re-configure, re-compile and re-install your kernel and the kernel modules!

PCMCIA

For RedHat 5.2 I have installed the "new" PCMCIA support pcmcia-cs-3.0.9.tar.gz which also supports 32-bit CardBus cards.
For RedHat 6.0 you don't have to do this.

PCMCIA Card not working??

In case your PCMCIA card does not work, check /var/log/messages and if there is a message similar to this:

	kernel: aha152x: trying software interrupt, lost. 
	kernel: aha152x: IRQ 5 possibly wrong.  Please verify. 

Then try to disable this particular interrupt in /etc/pcmcia/config.opts by adding a line

        exclude irq 5

e.g. I have noticed that I had to disable IRQ 9 in /etc/pcmcia/config.opts to make both my
new 3Com/Megahertz 10/100 Base-T Ethernet CardBus-card 3CCFE575BT and my Jaz-SCSI-card work at the same time.

I recently bought an EPSON 750Z digital camera. It uses FlashCards to save the pictures. It was no problem to mount the FlashCard under LINUX. All you need is the adapter to make a PCMCIA card out of the FlashCard (The adapter costs approx. $12 US),
a directory /flash and the following entry in /etc/fstab:

     /dev/hde1    /flash      msdos     defaults
 

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Maintainer: Tilo Sloboda linux AT unixgods.org last update: 20 February 2000