Neurotech - the weblog of Luke Reeves

I did it - I made the switch from Windows XP back to Linux on this machine fulltime. The gory details follow. The whole “Why” of the switch will come later.

Distribution

For the distribution I chose, once again, Debian. Get any installer CD image that’s based on the 2.6 kernel (such as the new beta installers). You can also use something like Knoppix to bootstrap the system if you like.

Installation

The installation of the Debian base system should be easy. Just follow the standard instructions, partition your drive and let it copy the files. When it gets to the part about selecting packages, skip it. Instead, don’t install any packages. Once you reboot and get back to a shell, change your /etc/apt/sources.list file to point to the Debian Unstable distribution and then do an apt-get dist-upgrade. Now use dselect to get you enough to build a kernel (namely gcc, ncurses, ncurses-dev and module-init-tools).

The Kernel

You’ll probably want to roll your own kernel for best results with this machine. I’m running 2.6.12.5 and I’ve had no problems. The relevant options in the kernel configuration are:

• Processor Type: Pentium M.
• Preemptible Kernel: Your choice; I say go for it, it should give you a nice performance boost.
• Local APIC Support: No.
• MTRR: Yes.
• APM: No.
• ACPI: Yes, totally. The TR2 has only an ACPI BIOS, so you need this. OK, not need, but if you want to check the temp, suspend or anything you’ll need it. Enable all the sub-components too, and build this section into the kernel as opposed to modules.
• CPU Frequency Scaling: Your call. The chip supports it, but I haven’t used this yet since I have the CPU set to run at maximum performance in the BIOS.
• PCMCIA: Yes, along with the Yenta support.
• Intel(R) PRO/100+ support: Yes. This is the network card, build is as either a module or preloaded.
• Bluetooth: I haven’t explored this yet, since I have no bluetooth devices.
• IEEE 1394: Build them as modules. The onboard firewire host seems to work well.
• USB host: EHCI host controller. According to the Kernel documentation, EHCI hosts are supposed to be complemented by either OCHI or UHCI controllers. In my tests with many different USB devices, the only thing that mattered was the EHCI - in fact, some things don’t work when using the other host modules. So use EHCI - your memory stick reader will show up then as a USB mass storage device. Speaking of which….
• USB modules: Build as many as you want, build them all if you want to be able to plug in just about anything. The USB mass storage support is usually pretty essential.
• SCSI: Build in SCSI generic support, and the IDE-SCSI layer for CD recording to work.
• AGP/DRM: Don’t build them; we’ll get to that later.
• Sound: Use the ALSA system with the Intel i8×0 driver.

That should be it for the kernel. Install it along with the modules, reboot.

System Configuration

Now assuming everything worked and you have an Internet connection, use dselect to start installing your system. Go for the meta-packages x-windows, kde, and so on, grabbing whatever you like. Some of the things you’ll probably want:

• usbmgr for managing USB devices.
• alsa-base and alsamixer are used for the sound system.
• acpid is an ACPI daemon that allows you to add hooks for certain events, like the power button being pushed or the lid being closed.
• cpufreqd for CPU throttling.
• cardmgr for PCMCIA devices.
• k3b is highly recommended for recording CDs.
• mplayer for your movies. This is one of the few you should grab as source, since the codecs and what not will probably never make it into the official Debian distribution.

X-Windows

The stock Debian X.Org system includes drivers that support 2D and 3D acceleration for the Intel 855GM chipset. The kicker is the resolution - this laptop monitor has a native display resolution of 1280×768 and unfortunately does not list that as a valid setting in the video BIOS. To get around that, you have to use a free utility named 855resolution. Basically create an init script to run this program. It’ll then initialize the video BIOS with the correct information for the screen and you should have a working X.Org installation.

802.11 Network Interface

The Japanese TR/2 is nice enough to come with an onboard Atheros-based 802.11a/b/g integrated card with a hardware radio switch. I’ve got the card working successfully using the MadWifi package. You’ll have to compile the drivers for your kernel separately, but the Wiki documentation is quite good.

Done

It’s not that bad, probably easier than it looks. Once I was done (and it didn’t take more than a few hours) I had/have a perfectly working Linux system.

Links

• Sony TR World - an awesome forum for owners of this series of laptops.
• linux on Vaio TR2 is a guide close to this one from a Japanese person who went through the same process using Fedora.