Linux on the new sony vio's ???

[MovingTarget]

i was looking at those new sony Lap tops the real small folding vio's and those are sweet http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif

but the real quastion is could i run say slackware or debain on it ?

thanx for the input in advance http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by MovingTarget (edited 27 December 2000).]

[hswoolve]

Yes, quite likely linux will run on the new Vaio's. People are putting linux on some esoteric machines.

Did you check out the linux on laptops site (go to google and type in the phrase to get to the site, I'm too lazy to look it up, or do a search on LNO for the same) to see if someone's already done it?

Did you have a model in mind?

[Linuxcool]

Check this out: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-laptop/

[Devrdander]

Give me the model i'll give you all the specs on it and tell you if it will work, are you refering the the PCGC1VN Picture Book, the PCGSR Series or the PCGZ505 series? I believe they should all work with the lastext XFree 4.0.2.

BTW, I work for sony ;-)

------------------
--{Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon}--

[Iceman]

Hello Target:

I've more than a few VAIO's. Probably the most Linux-friendly lappies I've ever seen.
Nearly every distro I've installed was painless. SuSe 6.3 and Calder 2.4 did not, though. May have been an issue with the burned CD's.

I do love the VAIO's, but must warn you SONY customer service is hell. I spent several hours on the phone last night to arrange shipment of two of my lappies for warranty repair. More time today, many faxes etc.
It's an old story with SONY. Treat the customer like crap and tell them the product is so good one should endure any sort of abuse. We should be grateful if treated like ****e? Please, give me a break.

I'm taking a position in 6 weeks as the CTO of a very large corporation. Whatever others recommend, I will have final decision on ALL hardware purchases. Will be buying at least 500 lappies per year. At least one person at SONY knows this and knows my prospective employer.

I was told this: "If you don't like our service or hardware, buy something else." IMHO, sheer arrogance.

SONY promises the VAIO's I'm sending in for repair will be back to me in two weeks. Right...if I see them in two months I'll consider it to be the norm for SONY.

IBM, Toshiba, Compaq and Fujitsu ALL get machines back to me in 72 hours. IBM often does it in 48 hrs. Still have a VAIO at the SONY lappie hospital in Fremont for nearly a year and can't even get the courtesy of an e-mail response.

Will send only one of the VAIO's in tomorrow. If I don't get it back in two weeks look for a story on show like 60 minutes.

Dev: no offense, but this has been my experience with SONY America. You say you work for them. Hope you've had a better experience. Still, I know others who work for SONY and say "good luck." They can't get better service than I. Screw SONY! If they don't want my business I won't bother them.
That's at the corporate level though. Guess they don't want to sell 500 or 1,000 lappies at a time to professionals who don't need tech support.

So, target, I must say I do still recommend the VAIO's. But you will need to go do a bit of research. All I have here is a Crusoe Picturebook, two 800 series, a 505 and an XG.
All running RH. MDK or Solaris 8 with no trouble on install. Don't use modems much, but can say the 800's are fine on the internal. IIRC, some of the F series have a wimodem--but I could be wrong on that.

I am NOT wrong on the customer servoce issue; any longtime SONY customer will back me up on this.

Good Luck

[MovingTarget]

well i unfortantly can say i have NEVER had a good CS experince with any company http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif
i loath CS so bad its more like customer hassel not service (but then does creating a head ache considered provideing service??) if so then i have had GREAT customer service experince's http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif

[eddyl]

I have a Sony VAIO N505ve. Overall I am really happy with it. I have never had any good CS experience with any company neither, so I always try to go for good quality product so there is a smaller chance I have to deal with CS.
I am really interested in setting up linux on my N505ve but I am a total newbie so I wonder if you guys have any recommendations on this issue.

thanks,

Ed

[Shad]

I know from from experience you have to pass a line during the intial boot sequence to get it to boot properly from the cd. It is something like linux ide=0x80,0x386

but I think that is slightly wrong. The Linux Laptop page has several links for installing linux on a Vaio. Very great resource and should cover most any potential problem.

The modems used are Rockwell/Conexant HCF modems that do have a linmodem driver. Of course it has the same limitations as the LT winmodem so be forewarned if you want to use it.

[hswoolve]

Thank you Linuxcool for the url for linux on laptops. I have it bookmarked but can't type the address from memory.