Re: [tlug] Sony VAIO VGN-UX71 and UX91 series with linux?

[Mattia Dongili <malattia@example.com>]

On Thu, Jul 19, 2007 at 05:55:19PM +0900, Gernot Hassenpflug wrote:
> I'm considering, against my better judgement, getting a small Sony in
> the VGN-UX91 or 71 family. Interestingly enough, the following link
> says that one can obtain this with linux, although I could not find
> any mention of such information on the Sony Japan website:
>
> http://xtreview.com/addcomment-id-1387-view-sony-vaio-VGN-UX91-preview.html

can't find any mention of it there as well, but no problem, even if it
was there I wouldn't believe it.
There are 2 or 3 important things that stille don't work as expected in
the UX:
- msduo internal reader
- special keys
- fingerprint reader
and selling it with linux preinstalled wouldn't be a big choice imo.

> I did not intend to buy directly from Sony to obtain linux installed, so...
> I am hoping some of you at TLUG have some further information or

my experience is mostly here:
http://www.linux.it/~malattia/wiki/index.php/Vaio_VGN-UX50
some links to others are at the end of the page.
I got it used one year ago in Osaka :)

> advice. I don't mind if the touch screen does not work, for example,
> and I do not envisage poor font quality even on that small screen.

touchscreen works and the screen quality is excellent. Compiz works well
with the video card and it has very good zoom-in/out.

> However, if there is some basic and important hardware that cannot be
> run under linux reasonably early (if not now then at least in several
> months' time) then that is a problem.

well, the fingerprint reader may even already be working, it's quite a
while I don't look for updates, but I'm not very interested in that.
msduo reader will work sooner or later. The driver is being written (I
believe readonly support is already there, at least I read that some
time ago) but since it's a reverse engineer effort it'll take time.
And I myself am trying to trace that damn special keys for the
sony-laptop kernel module, they all send the same keycode but I'm not
that used (at all actually) to windbg so I'll need more time.

BTW: if you can wait until the next nomikai I can bring my ux50 it with
me and show some stuff.

cheers
-- 
mattia
:wq!