Sony Vaio

For some strange reason the vertical scrolling is not working by default on Ubuntu 10.04. The solution to this problem is quite simple, but not so obvious.

To enable vertical scrolling for Sony Vaio F11 on Ubuntu 10.04 you will have to run the following command:

echo "options psmouse proto=imps" >> /etc/modprobe.d/psmouse.conf

The above command will set the protocol used for communication with the touchpad.

After upgrading to Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx some things started to work out of the box, but the sound and the microphone weren't between them.

Fixing the sound is easy, just install the alsa backport module:

sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-alsa

Fixing the microphone is a little bit more complicated. My solution is to patch the alsa-driver which comes with the backports package.

First you'll have to install the packages needed for compiling and then get the sources for the backports package:

sudo apt-get build-dep --no-install-recommends linux-image-$(uname -r)
apt-get source linux-backports-modules-alsa-$(uname -r)

Now download the patch file and apply it to the sources:

cd linux-backports-modules-2.6.32-2.6.32/updates/alsa-driver/
wget http://kenjiru.ro/files/enable-internal-microphone.patch
patch -p1 < enable-internal-microphone.patch

If everything goes fine, you can start compiling the sources. The following line will make sure only the driver for your card will be compiled:

./configure --with-cards=hda-intel --enable-dynamic-minors --with-moddir=extra
make

We don't need all the modules, only the one we patched:

sudo mkdir /lib/modules/`uname -r`/extra
sudo cp ./pci/hda/snd-hda-codec-realtek.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/extra/

Next you'll have to tell depmod to use the new module instead of the old one:

echo "override snd-hda-codec-realtek * extra" | sudo tee -a /etc/depmod.d/ubuntu.conf > /dev/null
sudo depmod -a

That's it! You'll have to restart to load the new module. You can verify the new module is used by issuing the following command:

$ modinfo snd-hda-codec-realtek
filename:       /lib/modules/2.6.32-22-generic/extra/snd-hda-codec-realtek.ko
description:    Realtek HD-audio codec
license:        GPL
alias:          snd-hda-codec-id:10ec*
srcversion:     4513A8ACA8A682A191E5AE5
depends:        snd-hda-codec,snd
vermagic:       2.6.32-22-generic SMP mod_unload modversions

The filename field should point to the new module.

Adjusting the display brightness for the Sony Vaio F series doesn't work by default on Ubuntu. I've done a little research about the issue and found some interesting things.

After loading and unloading the module, you get the following dmesg messages:

# rmmod sony_laptop
# modprobe sony_laptop debug=1
# dmesg | tail
[ 2976.867199] sony-laptop: method: name: SNFD, args 1
[ 2976.867204] sony-laptop: method: name: SNFE, args 1
[ 2976.867209] sony-laptop: method: name: SNFF, args 1
[ 2976.867218] sony-laptop: Doing SNC setup
[ 2976.879859] sony-laptop: Found rkfill handle: 0x0124
[ 2976.880855] sony-laptop: Radio devices, looking at 0x00
[ 2976.882935] sony-laptop: Radio devices, looking at 0x10
[ 2976.892519] input: Sony Vaio Keys as /devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0A08:00/device:01/SNY5001:00/input/input11
[ 2976.892599] input: Sony Vaio Jogdial as /devices/virtual/input/input12
[ 2976.892657] sony-laptop: brightness ignored, must be controlled by ACPI video driver

Now, when pressing the Fn keys, you get the following output:

# dmesg | tail
[10933.010324] sony-laptop: sony_nc_notify, event: 0x10
[10933.186300] sony-laptop: sony_nc_notify, event: 0x3b
[10933.736506] sony-laptop: sony_nc_notify, event: 0x11
[10933.891048] sony-laptop: sony_nc_notify, event: 0x3b

The most important message here is sony-laptop: brightness ignored, must be controlled by ACPI video driver. This tells us that the brightness must be handled by the nVidia video driver.

By default the brightness control is disabled in the nVidia driver. To enable it, you'll have to add the following line to the "Device" section of your xorg.conf:

Option "RegistryDwords" "EnableBrightnessControl=1"

After adding the line, just restart your X server. Everything will work fine, including the auto brightness dimming.