Vaio S and Linux

Hi all,

Considering a Vaio SE, and I want to know how well linux plays with it. In particular, I'm interested to know how the mux switch plays with linux, since I know that even in windows, users have problems to get updated AMD drivers because of the mux, and have to wait for an update from Sony.

I don't actually care about the discrete graphics of the system, so if someone told me I would only be able to use the IGP in the CPU, I'd be more than happy with that.

Any problems with linux on one of these laptops people have had I'd like to know about.

Regards,

Yax

 

Try:

Ubuntu Forums

I know there's an external switch for graphics, but I wouldn't assume that it would default to integrated graphics. It might default to dedicated graphics, for all I know. Moreover, the days when Intel integrated graphics were always a sure bet with Linux are long gone. Do your best to make sure it will work before buying.

 

First and foremost, the external switch does nothing to the graphics. It's a software switch that tells windows to switch GPUs etc. Linux currently pays no attention to it.

I have an SA, which is basically the same thing in 13.3" form with a TN screen instead of IPS. I am able to disable the discrete GPU and get about 2.5 hours of battery. The real limitation on battery run time right now is that 2nd gen core i CPUS and their BIOS and linux don't mix well, and there's a power usage issue.

A supposed "fix" that went into the linux kernel somewhere around 2.6.32 or so actually caused power usage to nearly double at idle. Reading up about it on the web, the folks who put it in admit that they were basically guessing on what they were needing to do and got it wrong.

The fixes for this power issue are now in the 3.3 kernel.

At idle, running Ubuntu 11.10, with the discrete GPU disabled, my SA pulls 22 to 24 watts. In comparison, my first gen core i5 in my older Acer 4820TG pulls about 10 to 12 watts. Earlier testing on my Sony SA with Ubuntu 12.04 pre-release got the power draw down to about 18 to 20 watts. We'll see how the backported patches from 3.3 kernel to the 3.0 kernel in Ubuntu 12.04 pan out.

To disable the discrete GPU you can issue this command:

Code:

echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch

as root. Just copy it to your /etc/rc.local to turn off the discrete GPU. note that some parts of that circuit appear to stay powered up, because if I go the extra effort of compiling acpi_call and using it as well I go from 2:30 or so of battery to 2:50 or so.

Further info for you: There's no current touchpad driver for the 3.0.x kernels, but have read that the 3.3 kernels do have a proper driver for it. Til then, the touchpad is touchy as heck. It is virtually impossible to type without hitting it with your palm. and even the lightest brush will cause the cursor to click on something. So, I use these two commands to turn the touchpad on or off, and mostly use my logitech trackball instead:

Code:

off: sudo rmmod psmouse
on: sudo modprobe psmouse

Everything else works great on this machine. Once a distro comes out with the 3.3 or above kernel (or backported trackpad drivers and power fixes), everything should be fine.

Note that the SE has a bright IPS 1080p screen that is great to look at mostly, but has trouble reproducing red tones, so if you want to do photo editing you'll need an external monitor.

 

In all fairness, I know Sony announced an updated Vaio SE at CES 2012 with an IPS screen, although I don't know for sure if existing inventories have an IPS screen or just a very good TN.

There are quite a few good quality 15.6" 1080P TN screens out there, though.

 

Sxooter, thank you very much this is perfect.

I intend to use fedora 16, which has apparently has been testing the power usage fix thats in 3.3 kernel for some time, but even if it is not there, fedora are pretty quick on getting the latest kernel, so I am not too concerned about that. Depending how much effort it is to compile ACPI call, I may or may not do it, but I am considering modding the laptop and removing the discrete graphics completely, not only to ensure no power is being drawn, but also to reduce the units weight (15.6 laptop is kind of larger than I wanted).

Touchpad driver, meh, don't care, I'll be using a roccat pyra. On off commands are appreciated.

What about controlling brightness of the screen? I heard that some laptops have issues with that in Linux ...

Thanks very much for your post it is exactly what I needed - I'm pretty sure I will get the SE now.

Kind regards,

Yax

 

A few users in the Sony SE thread have gotten a hold of the Spring models. They said the panel has the same issues as the earlier models so we believe the original display was an IPS.

If you want IPS for the viewing angles it's great If you plan on using it for colour sensitive work you should be aware that REDs are off and can't be corrected.

 

I think, if one wanted an IPS for colour sensetive work, their only option would be those Dell workstation ones ... or no laptop at all.

Thanks for the head up, but I'm principally interested in viewing angles. I'm sure its also still fair to say that at that price point, the colour reproduction is better than that of any TN panel, and even if it were not, most TN panels limited sweet spot would render the advantage almost useless anyway.

My main need was to not be distracted by contrast shifts (yes, I'm a 5 year old but it really distracts me), gloss glare, and to be able to have a large workspace (1080p res). This made the Lenovo X220 a less attractive choice, especially at its price point. Since I'll be using a Linux terminal and doing lots of software development, I'm not really fussed by off-reds, if I even notice at all. Now that you mention it though, the demo "Dark Knight Rises" clip they had playing on it in store did look somewhat ... yellow ...

 

The issue with reds seems to depend on the person. Some people don't even notice it. Others don't care. I agree a workstation is the way to go if you want colour accuracy or a nice external monitor at your work place.

I have the SE and the anti-glare/brightness is really useful when I'm working on a sunny day. That period when the sun blasts through the windows in the late afternoon is much more manageable.

Hope you enjoy it.

 

Not sure you can disable the GPU, it's soldered in place. Might be a BIOS mod you can install that could just turn it off.

The birght / dim function switches work fine, as the do the volume up / down and the sleep function. Sadly mouse on / off doesn't.

Also HP Elitebooks can come with a very high quality IPS screen.

As for TN screens, the ones that come in the Dell XPS, the Lenovo W520, and the Sager / Clevos rated at 95% color gamut would have much better color repro than the SE's IPS screen. But like all TNs they will not have great viewing angles.

 

If anyone is interested, this might be pertinent to battery life:

[Phoronix] Intel Tries To Fix RC6 Support Once Again

tl;dr
There is a kernel parameter one can use to try enabling a power saving state that is responsible for shaving between 5 and 10 watts off idle power usage. Its caveated though, because it caused some crashes on some systems, and this is why its not enabled by default. This applies to sandybridge processors.

Code:

i915.i915_enable_rc6=1

enables the power saving feature, but beware ...

 

I've got the Vaio SE now - was just installing Linux last night. For some reason the CPU was throttled at 800MHz after about 30% through updating with YUM, which annoyed me. I'm sure its jsut some setting I have to fiddle though, I've added radeon to kernel driver blacklist.

I haven't tried with the updated kernel yet though, that might have improved the throttling nastiness. I also haven't tried tweaking that kernel parameter above yet, all in good time.

Happy with the screen, although the fn buttons don't seem to respond to changing the brightness. Again, I've only had a quick chance to fiddle so far.

I'm also going to write a script to help estimate battery life in a consistent fashion, I'll put some results when I do.

 

Running Ubuntu 11.10 on my SA3 and the brightness and volume fn buttons work fine. Sadly the touchpad is a disaster, and the on / off fn buttons do not work there.

As for the 800MHz, look at /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_max_freq and cpuinfo_cur_freq

 

I'm running fedora 16. I've got a question going at fedoraforums.org as to why my card reader and fn buttons are not working, hopefully someone can respond.

Touchpad seems to be ok for me in fedora16, I've not even bothered to use the mouse yet (although I will do when I get to using it seriously, I can't manage without middle click).

I'll have a look at those files tonight, one thing I've found is that quite often some info is in a file, but that file doesn't exist on particular systems. For example, with the default kernel, I had a /proc/acpi/battery/BATx/(info|state|alarm) path for each of the batteries. Cat'ing those files would provide useful details. When I updated the kernel to the latest offered by fedora (3.2.9-1) those paths disappeared, and I had only acpi -i to provide me with battery info, which is much less detailed.

On the note of the updated kernel, the throttling seems to be much reduced now, it seemed to be temperature related and it might be that the regression bug has been fixed allowing for higher loads without significantly raising the temperature. I got the impression the CPU was still throttling a little, but I'm going to verify that properly when I get time.

Overall, not too shabby so far, but I've not had much time to do all the fiddling I might want/need to do yet.

 

Fixed the fn keys by placing the following into $HOME/.config/openbet/lxde-rc.xml

PHP:

  <keyboard>
    <!-- Laptop Key bindings for brightness control-->
    <keybind key="XF86MonBrightnessUp">
      <action name="Execute">
        <command>xbacklight -inc 15</command>
      </action>
    </keybind>
    <keybind key="XF86MonBrightnessDown">
      <action name="Execute">
        <command>xbacklight -dec 10</command>
      </action>
    </keybind>


(The above is not actually PHP, but it showed my XML properly..)

So not everything is bound (because I don't care about volume control etc) but by way of extension the idea is similar. Use xev to find out what keystrokes the system receives when pressing the buttons in question and assigning that value to the key value of keybind, and providing an appropriate command to execute - this can be anything, for brightness control it was xbacklight (or a script that echos values into a system brightness file).

Edit: The xml for the lxde file I put in a "code" block isn't displaying properly. Any help with this?
Edit: Fixed by placing into PHP tags

 

Well, I had a funny discovery today. CPU throtling occurring while STAMINA switch is enabled. Happened in Windows too, and I couldn't quite figure why Sony have designed it that way, especially since there is no mention that the CPU will be throttled under this setting. After a 45 min call with Sony, the representative said they would call be back with some definitive answer why this is happening. They've not yet called back, but I switched my Linux SSD back in to run some tests. Lo and behold, set the switch to SPEED, no throttling. Whats more astonishing it changes in realtime with the switch, so when I was stressing the system (80 degrees approx), and I flipped to stamina, the CPU throttled right down to 1GHz until it cooled off, and then went back up to 1.8GHz. Either linux has some kernel drivers for this switch in the sony_laptop module, or it is some kind of hardware switch that does something to BIOS settings.

Either way, I am really happy, because its useful for keeping battery usage down, but also because my laptop is actually fine where I thought it might have had a fault.

So the switch does have an impact in Linux, just not necessarily noticeable unless you do CPU heavy tasks like I do.

 

Just in case anyone else has a problem with linux and the card reader - the device is a realtek PCIe multi-card reader. I'm not sure of the exact moel (because I can't be bothered to put my windows drive in and find out the precise model number), but the linux drivers provided at Realtek worked fine.