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I have a Sony Vaio FE31M and after a false start it works perfectly with Ubuntu Feisty Fawn (Ubuntu 7.04)
General specifications :
Intel Core 2 Duo T5600 1.83 Ghz
1 Gb DDR2 SDRAM (533 Mhz)
160 Gb hd
15.4” LCD screen
INSTALLATION
The first installation failed : x-server crashed and I couldn't get it started.
Instead of going to the command line and trying to configure it manually I just restared the installation, and then everything worked fine.
HARDWARE
Graphics : NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600
In Feisty, all you have to do to get the correct drivers is go to System -> Administration -> Restricted Drivers Manager and type in the password you entered during the installation proces. There you will see the “NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver”, just click on enable and apply.
Network : PRO/100 VE Network Connection
Works out of the box.
Network : Intel Pro Wireless 3945 ABG
Same as with the graphics card -> just go to the restricted drivers manager and click enable. Works fine.
I haven't tested WEP en WPA encryption yet, so I can't answer that one just yet.
DVD+-RW/+-R DL/RAM Drive : Works fine. But reading DVD does require installing the needed packages (Ubuntu does not come with DVD-support pre-installed because of legal issues. Easily solved from the add/remove tool by clicking the right software).
Touchpad : Worked out of the box.
Keyboard : Choosing the right lay-out (Belgium in this case) during installation and you are fine. The only that will not work are the fn-keys. Maybe there is a sollution for this, I do not care, I don't use them.
Sound : Only problem was recording, but that was because Ubuntu has the recording volume (“capture”) disabled (“mute”) in the sound settings. It took me a while to discover this. Skype for example works perfect.
Built-in Motion Eye Camera : Works. Used aMSN and Camorama Webcam Viewer to test. Apperantly there are some people that need to here : http://mxhaard.free.fr/download.html
OTHER
Power management : Seems to be working fine.
Sleep mode : works.
The Gnome NetworkManager Applet 0.6.4 sometimes doesn't refresh the wireless network list. Just do the following in command line instead :
watch -n1 'iwlist eth1 scanning | grep -E “Cell |ESSID|Channel|Quality|IE”'
This will give a constantly refreshed list of all available wireless networks with their ESSID, the Channel on which they are broadcasting, their quality and security.
Internal 56k Modem : I do not need this, so I haven't even looked at it.
Contact : maxwellrain at gmail dot com
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