Linux on Sony Vaio Z?

[sector]

no, there is no option to do that :/

[djlooka]

There should be a brightness slider bar that you can adjust to reduce the brigthess.

You got it!
It definitely does something! I currently set both Contrast and Brightness to "-1.00" (leaving Gamma to 1.00), and now I finally can watch my screen without my eyes being offended Great job! (but the colours are not the right ones: they look "weak", black turns to grey, etc)

It's not a definitive solution, but at least a starting point.
I mean:

• it's only possible to do it with the nvidia gpu enabled (which means the weird procedure of "boot win, switch, reboot, turn on linux, etc.")
• both the gpus are anyway turned on together, so the battery life is embarassing (considering my 5h of everyday use as comparison)
• the 9300 drains more power if it's really used and not only powered

As I said before, it's not ready for everyday use.

[sector]

do you have hardware 3d acceleration? if so, are you able to run compiz-fusion? and one more, your wi-fi card is working?

[djlooka]

do you have hardware 3d acceleration?

Yes.

if so, are you able to run compiz-fusion?

I don't know if it's comparable to the full compiz fusion, but it's possible to enable the enhanced video effects on Gnome (only tried with the 9300).

and one more, your wi-fi card is working?

I have no wi-fi at home, but I remember network-manager didn't recognize any wlan some time ago. Currently I have wicd, so I'll try ASAP.
The only thing I'm sure of is that the "wireless" switch seems to work pretty well, as it enables/disables the BT service (and it's even a bit quicker than the windows one).

Good news: with the default BT service (bluez, I think) I managed to send a photo to my Nokia E65.
Bad news: I couldn't send anything from the mobile to my Z. It appears on the list, I can select it, but it fails: "Impossible to send".

One more thing: with the brightness trick (on Nvidia), the mouse pointer remains fully enlightened, it's not possible to regulate its brightness
So it's still not hw regulation, just a kind of sw calibration, that only involves the desktop (and not the whole X, for example).

[sector]

Last night, i was playing with linux and i runned Fedora 10 (kernel *.27 if im not wrong) and almost everything works perfectly.

wi-fi working
enhanced video effects working
BT ok!

but like you said before, there is no brightness regulation. FN keys are working, but not one with "sun" :/. Hopefully soon we will have new kernel where everything will be ok!

[djlooka]

Last night, i was playing with linux and i runned Fedora 10 (kernel *.27 if im not wrong) and almost everything works perfectly.

wi-fi working
enhanced video effects working
BT ok!

but like you said before, there is no brightness regulation. FN keys are working, but not one with "sun" :/. Hopefully soon we will have new kernel where everything will be ok!

Fedora? With Gnome?
Which network manager does it have?
Did you both send and receive files with BT?

[sector]

Yes Fedora 10 with Gnome. Hm.. i dont know which network manager fedora is using, but it looks very similar to ubuntu tbh. There is one but! When i tryed Ubuntu 8.10 i couldn't connect to any wi-fi network, with fedora it works fine!

Tbh i didnt try to recieve files on my vaio, but sending works good! FN keys, such as Volume UP/DN works good as well. Soon, new Sabayon Linux is comming out. Maybe he will have new kernel, or at least video support will be better.

[ssd4all]

You got it!
It definitely does something! I currently set both Contrast and Brightness to "-1.00" (leaving Gamma to 1.00), and now I finally can watch my screen without my eyes being offended Great job! (but the colours are not the right ones: they look "weak", black turns to grey, etc)

It's not a definitive solution, but at least a starting point.
I mean:

• it's only possible to do it with the nvidia gpu enabled (which means the weird procedure of "boot win, switch, reboot, turn on linux, etc.")
• both the gpus are anyway turned on together, so the battery life is embarassing (considering my 5h of everyday use as comparison)
• the 9300 drains more power if it's really used and not only powered

As I said before, it's not ready for everyday use.

I had the same problem controlling the screen's backlight on my SR. If you are running
KDE you may be able to change the screen brightness using the slider in the Power
Management Widget of the KDE panel. Works great for me in all distros I have tested:
Ubuntu, Mandriva, and OpenSuSe. Moreover I can define a different default screen
brightness for different Power Profiles.

... btw I am writing this running on OpenSuSe 11.1 RC1, and I feel it IS ready for
everyday use. Wish only that ATI already provided an rpm with their latest driver for my
Radeon 3470 on OpenSuSe 11.1!

[dhfriedman]

so the hybrid graphics don't work? can you switch at all? could someone make a list of what works and what doesn't on the Z?

[chong67]

Why is not running Vmware a good solution?

It detect USB when I plug in.

Yah, it does need to use the host to power most of the things.

I guess if you want adventure, then go for the real thing. :-)