Linux: Better than sliced bread.
Linux has gotten So. Damn. Cool.
The end result of my Dell fiasco is that I threw a tantrum, demanded a refund, and marched down to my local Sony store to buy their similar product. I’m now the proud owner of a Sony Vaio SZ. Sony haven’t been known for their Linux compatible machines in the past, but these days if you pick a machine with mostly Intel components at least you know there are good Linux drivers for them.
I had some pretty stringent requirements for this machine. It needed to be able to be docked and undocked many times a day from a docking station with very little fuss, preferably being able to switch between dual monitor and single without needing to restart Xorg. I wasn’t even sure if this could really be done - it’s been a while since I used dual monitors under Linux.
I am extremely impressed with the current NVidia drivers and *buntu Fiesty. I can put the laptop on or off the docking station as I please, and all of the devices happily disconnect and connect themselves at the right times without anything getting upset at being yanked away from the laptop. The last time I tried a docking station with a laptop was a few months ago with a Lenovo X40, and it used to kernel panic every time I tried to undock it.
The excellence of the current NVidia driver is what’s really blown me away though. I dropped the laptop on the docking station and connected my external panel up to the DVI port and then ran nvidia-settings. I could immediatley see that it had detected the monitor, so I selected it and clicked to enable Twin View.
I almost fell off my chair when it worked.
I didn’t have to restart Xorg or fiddle with any settings manually - it truly JustWorked the way one expects a modern desktop would. About an hour later I had a meeting to go to - I (a little nervously) pulled my laptop off the docking station and pulled up nvidia-settings again to disable the second display. All of the windows that were open on my external display trotted back to the main one and everything was rosy.
When I came back from my meeting and enabled the second display again, windows that had previously been on the external display appeared back there. It was very, very nicely done and I’m very very impressed.
So, that’s two Sony Vaio machines I’ve bought recently that have worked excellently with Linux. I think it’s my new favourite brand :)
(I still have the itty bitty guy - he’s just not powerful enough to run all the vmware I have to run at work :()
risbac said,
August 13, 2007 @ 11:16 am
What’s a bit sad in my opinion is that we are happy with something than the other big OS have for years… I know it’s great to have this working without tweaking the Xorg.conf file and rebooting x times the X server. But thats just something we should have had for years. This is no new exciting technology or features. Just “how it should work”. I’m just like you, I enjoy when it’s working, but thats not what I’m going to talk about when talking about Linux :) That’s usually what I will put in the list of potential problems instead. But it’s clearly easier and easier,
Stregatto said,
August 13, 2007 @ 5:03 pm
Yup, everything-Intel (or almost so) is a very good choice for getting a laptop that will work very well with Linux, and it is exactly the same thing that i did :)
The very hard choice for was between an intel video card, not very fast but with quite good and opensource drivers and a fast nvidia one with state-of-the-art binary drivers, and that would probably eat more battery though.
At the end I went for Intel, and i was quite pleased to have and everthing-FOSS laptop, but now i’m missing OpenGL2-enabled drivers a bit :)
sinewalker said,
August 14, 2007 @ 6:06 am
Hey this is cool, I like the brushed metal facing too.
So does the camera work too? I’m shopping for a notebook, would be nice if the camera could be made to work with Kopete (my mum is nagging me about video conferencing for the new bub…).
I know you won’t have time to do a full review, but can you do a quick lsusb to find the camera’s chipset? Couldn’t find this detail from Sony’s web site
jhall said,
August 14, 2007 @ 12:31 pm
@sinewalker, actually there is a chance I’ll be reviewing this model for LJ, in which case the camera is something I’d totally be addressing. The webcam is a ricoh model, Bus 003 Device 003: ID 05ca:1835 Ricoh Co., Ltd.
@Stregatto, The NVidia binary drivers are quite excellent, but you are right that they churn a little battery. Since this laptop has both Intel and NVidia graphics that you can toggle between I can do a fairly decent test, and I get about 4 hours on the Intel and about 3 on the Nvidia…. but hey, I can play warcraft on the NVidia!
@risbac, that’s indeed true - but the other OS’ don’t have some things that Linux has had for years. Nothing is perfect, but I’m excited at any progress toward it.
Quim said,
August 14, 2007 @ 6:45 pm
I just read your post about your new Sony VAIO SZ, congratulations I’m a very proud owner of a Sony VAIO AR…
I want to point you to a WebCam driver that worked for me, I think your webcam model is also supported… Here it is: http://lsb.blogdns.net/ry5u870
sinewalker said,
August 15, 2007 @ 5:11 am
Thanks Jess, you’re awesome.
A quick Google of “v4l 05ca:1835″ lead me to http://lsb.blogdns.net/ry5u870/
Looks like the Ricoh’s supported, the driver supports Video4Linux 2 API, with a *buntu package and verified working with Kopete! Woot!
aloon said,
August 15, 2007 @ 5:06 pm
According to the link you gave in this post, that Sony Vaio costs 4000 NZD. On [url=http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xpsnb_m1330?c=nz&cs=nzdhs1&l=en&s=dhs]Dell’s website for New Zealand[/url] I see a comparable configuration of the M1330 for 2100 NZD.
Are you really OK with paying 1900 NZD extra because you had to wait a few weeks longer for M1330? Of course Sony’s notebooks are cool, but they cost a fortune. It’s not a problem for you to spend so much of your income on a notebook, possibly because you intend to use it for quite a few years?
I would have ordered the M1330 and be patient, even if I had to wait a few weeks or months, can’t beat the price/quality ratio and the LED-backlit display of the M1330.
Rumil said,
August 20, 2007 @ 6:31 am
Could you check if fingerprint scanner works with either thinkFinger (http://thinkfinger.sourceforge.net/) or UPEK driver (http://www.upek.com/support/dl_linux_bsp.asp) ?