Linux on the Sony VAIO PCG-GRT170

Last update: 11/Jan/2004

I managed to get most stuff to work on my Sony VAIO PCG-GRT170. I am currently running Gentoo Linux with a 2.6.1 kernel. I used to run SuSE Linux 8.2 with a 2.4.22 kernel and most things worked just fine.

Graphics:
Works with NVidia's latest official driver (1.0.5328). The critical part seems to be the following line in the device section in XF86Config:

Option "NvAGP" "1"

Sound:
Works out of the box with the 2.6.1 also modules (snd-intel8x0).
The sound module is not part of the kernel. You need to enable the ALSA drivers in the kernel (or get alsa separately for 2.4 kernels).

Wireless card:
The build-in wireless card works, but only after patching the orinoco_pci kernel module. I got the patch from here.

--- linux-2.4.20/drivers/net/wireless/orinoco_pci.c.orig        2003-05-21 11:40:59.000000000 -0400
+++ linux-2.4.20/drivers/net/wireless/orinoco_pci.c     2003-05-21 11:41:52.000000000 -0400
@@ -359,6 +359,7 @@
 }
 
 static struct pci_device_id orinoco_pci_pci_id_table[] __devinitdata = {
+       {0x1260, 0x3872, PCI_ANY_ID, PCI_ANY_ID,},
        {0x1260, 0x3873, PCI_ANY_ID, PCI_ANY_ID,},
        {0,},
 };

Network adapter:
Works fine with the sis900 module. If you are using a 2.4 kernel, make sure the sonypi.o module is not loaded, it seems to conflict with the ethernet driver. As soon as I load the module, the ethernet interface stops working. I don't have this problem with 2.6 anymore.

USB:
Works fine. I am using an external USB harddrive and a Canon IXUS V3 digital camera without problems. I am using the new udev device filesystem and hotplug, but it should work with devfs or a traditional /dev setup as well.

DVD-Burner:
The burner works fine with the ide-scsi emulation on 2.4. With 2.6, SCSI emulation is not needed any more and the DVD burner works with the standard IDE driver. The burning tools must support ATAPI buring. Make sure you have the lastest versions of cdrdao etc.

ACPI/Power Management
The new 2.6 kernel series improved a lot in terms of ACPI. The battery and thermal indicators work fine. I couldn't get the sleep / hibernate functionality to work yet, because some drivers in 2.6 still lack power management support. The 2.6.1 kernel includes some updated drivers and I will give it another try soon.

APM/Volume buttons
I haven't found a way yet to get this stuff to work.

If you have questions email me at ralf(at)well.com.