Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 21:16:58 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: keichii@peorth.iteration.net Cc: tlambert@primenet.com (Terry Lambert), nate@yogotech.com, JHowie@msn.com (John Howie), phk@critter.freebsd.dk (Poul-Henning Kamp), brett@lariat.org (Brett Glass), chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Sony VAIO, winmodems, etc. (was Re: ftpd bug) Message-ID: <200010042116.OAA02286@usr06.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <20001004114506.A24813@peorth.iteration.net> from "Michael C . Wu" at Oct 04, 2000 11:45:06 AM
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> On Mon, Oct 02, 2000 at 09:48:26PM +0000, Terry Lambert scribbled:
> | I wish my Vaio's winmodem worked on FreeBSD. Same for the
> | sound card, and don't get me started on DVD playback support.
>
> Winmodem can't be helped.
Yes it can; I've sent a copy of "Sourcer" and the drivers to a
German friend of mine to document, if it isn't too big a task.
> But sound and DVD both work on my VAIO z505js
> Sound was done by "device pcm," and DVD just "worked."
I'll try the sound. I'm pretty sure that I will only be able
to use the DVD as a CDROM drive under BSD, and not be able to
play DVDs.
> Many people have had trouble installing drivers in WinXX.
Not me. But I've done protected mode work on both Windows 9x
and on NT, so I'm probably an exception, being clued and all
that... ;-).
> Lucent seems to have released a winmodem driver for linux.
There is also the "linmodem" stuff, but neither supports the
Rockwell HCF 56K Data Fax RTAD PCI Modem.
> | If you buy a new machine with an old OS, it's supported by
> | Microsoft for 90 days from date of purchse, so long as the
> | vendor has a contract with Microsoft.
>
> If you buy a new machine from Telenet with FreeBSD or BSD/OS,
> I think it would be supported...
> But, are you buying FreeBSD when you do an FTP install?
I installed from a bootable FreBSD 4.1 CDROM. If you have a
bootable CDROM in the drive and power on a Sony VAIO PCG-XG2{8|9},
it will actually boot from the thing (this is not documented in
the user's guide, but is pretty frigging slick/0.
I bought a copy of Partition Magic with Boot Magic beforehand,
and had done the reallocations, so things just went right in.
Getting XFree86 working was a hell of chore, but it's happy now.
So the non-default status list is:
painful XFree86 1024x768; I can supply a config file, if
someone decides they need one. The chipset is not
quite supported, so much of the acceleration is
currently disabled; big deal, the thing is a 750MHz
Pentium III on a laptop.
config? Sound not currently working
config? APM not currently working
broken Rockwell HCF Data Fax RTAD PCI Modem (winmodem)
broken Fn-key keyboard based sound, brightness, monitor,
sleep, and suspend mode controls
config? Windows and menu keys on keyboard
config? Touchpad single/double click is overly sensitive
config? No third button (can touchpad be discriminated?)
untried Firewire (no FreeBSD video apps)
untried IR (no FreeBSD stuff for IR printers)
untried USB (no USB keyboard arrived via UPS, yet)
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the thing for doing work, and, of
course, if I really need to watch a DVD, or use the modem, or the
other features broken in FreeBSD, I can boot Windows and tolerate
it long enough to use the Windows-only stuff.
The thing is a hell of a lot faster than the desktop I used at
Whistle; I've already got 2.8M lines of code in my CVS repository
on the thing, so it's an OK CVS server, too.
Has anyone used the optional R/W CDROM to burn a CD on one of
these things yet? Network backups are a pain.
Terry Lambert
terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.
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