Monthly Archives: September 2007

Car Update

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Lars and Henrik arrived 7 days ago have been visiting Duke the past week. Lars went home yesterday and Henrik is staying a week more. Yesterday Henrik and I went to Jiffy-Lube in Durham and I had my car inspected (it passed!) and got an oil change. I am now pretty much done with all the talks related to the car, the only thing left is to send the old New Jersey plates back and to send my insurance company a copy of my registration.

I have a couple of lang-haul flights in the upcoming months (Seattle and Israel) and is currently seriously looking into noise canceling headphones. I tried a pair from Bose at an Apple Store in Raleigh two days ago and they were amazingly effective, they would make for a great companion on flight and on the train when I get back home. Unfortunately the technology is quite pricey with the top-of-the-range Bose headphones leading the field at around 300 dollars. I am also considering getting one of the new 8 gig iPod nanos (yes I know, I said I would never get one of those, leave me alone!) to go with the head phones. The iPod is actually considerably _cheaper_ than the headphones.

If anyone has any headphone recommendations, please put them in the comments to this post. I have read this positive New York Times review of different types of headphones, the technology looks pretty mature.

Car Stuff

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Today I went to two different North Caroline DMV office locations. I started out at one of the offices that grants drivers licenses. I had a short wait, a little interview followed by a written test and ending up with a actual driving test. Everything went fine and I left with a fine new North Carolina drivers license. Armed with that license, I went to the vehicle registration and title office where I successfully transferred the New Jersey title in the sellers name to a North Carolina title in my name. I left with a new registration and a new license plate (only one, NC does not require cars to have license plates in front).
*insert drum solo*
batmobile 1
batmobile
And here is a picture of the house I am staying in.
house
I am staying there with two other Duke cs grad students, I have a room on the first floor with windows facing away from the camera in this photo. I am very happy about my living arrangements, the room is big and we have a nice living room and a good kitchen.

GNU/Linux (Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon 7.10) on the Sony VAIO SZ6 Series

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For the most recent version of this document and for commenting, go here.. Please direct your links there, instead of here.

I purchased a Sony VGN-SZ650N/C in September 2007. Full specs are here. It’s a great laptop except for the fact that you have to pay the Microsoft Tax and that the preinstalled vista has a whole heap of junk preinstalled (I’ve never seen anything quite this bad before. Anyways, this is not a review, there’s plenty of those online already, but an attempt to document my efforts to make the GNU/Linux distribution: Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon run smoothly on this laptop and by extension, hopefully the rest in the VAIO SZ6xx series. This is the first laptop in the SZ-series with Intels new Santa Rosa platform (aka Centrino Duo).
I have not had the time to spend too much time on all of the items below yet, this is very much a document “under construction”. If you happen to have something working which I have not mentioned/solved yet please write me and I will put it here (and give proper credit of course).

PCI Devices

Here is the output from lspci in stamina mode.

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation Mobile IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation Mobile SATA IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
06:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Unknown device 4229 (rev 61)
07:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8055 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 12)
09:04.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller
09:04.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCIxx12 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
09:04.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)

USB Devices

Here is the output from lsusb:

Bus 006 Device 003: ID 05ca:183a Ricoh Co., Ltd
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 147e:2016
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 005 Device 002: ID 044e:300d Alps Electric Co., Ltd
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Installation

The installation worked without any problems (using Ubuntu Gubsy Gibbon Tribe 5), I used the “stamina” mode.

Sound

Worked partly out of the box. The sound works, but speakers are not independent from the head phone plug. This means that plugging in head phones does not mute the speakers, and the speakers cannot manually be muted without also muting the head phones. In general, alsa exports very few controls for the sound card (which is a Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) ). Ubuntu is running Alsa version 1.0.14, and the changelog for 1.0.15rc1 lists a lot of changes to the snd-hda-intel driver, which is good. I have not tried installing any release canditate of 1.0.15, but will probably try it.

Update:
I installed alsa version 1.0.15rc2 and now the speakers are muted when the headphones are inserted. The microphone works as well after enabling it in the mixer. Using the GNOME alsa mixer, it looks like this:
screenshot-volume-control-hda-intel-alsa-mixer.png

Suspend/Hibernate

Not working yet

Fingerprint Scanner

Not working yet.

Webcam

Not working yet. According to lsusb the webcam has id: 05ca:183a. Owner of older-generation VAIOs have had luck with this Ricoh R5U870 driver. but the 183a is not listed as supported. Hopefully the driver will work with minor modifications, but I have not looked into this.

Brightness Controls

Not working yet.

Stamina vs. Speed mode

Not tested yet, should work out of the box. You need to use different xorg.conf files. This little script by Ariel Vardi copies the right xorg.conf file on startup depending on whether or not the nvidia card is activated or not.

VIDEO=`/usr/bin/lspci |grep -c nVidia`

if [ "$VIDEO" = 1 ]; then
cp -f /etc/X11/xorg.conf.speed /etc/X11/xorg.conf
else
cp -f /etc/X11/xorg.conf.stamina /etc/X11/xorg.conf
fi

The script should be placed in the /etc/init.d so it is run on startup (before gdm) and the two xorg configurations (speed and stamina) should exist, full details on Ariel Vardi’s excellent site.

For the most recent version of this document and for commenting, go here.. Please direct your links there, instead of here.

Now Live From Durham

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I am currently sitting in my room here in Durham waiting for Ubuntu Gutsy Tribe 5 to install on my brand new Sony VAIO SZ650. It is an very nice ultra-portable with Santa Rosa and other fancy things (like an carbon-fiber casing!). The keyboard is a bit strange, so I reserve the right to make more typos than usual.
Anyways, the ubuntu installation cd doubles as a live cd – so I can actually sit online on the wireless network and blog while the system is installing in the background (beat that Microsoft!).

Now for some news for the non-geeks reading this site (I think that would pretty much only be members of my family, correct me if I’m wrong).
I arrived in Durham Wednesday evening after a rather long drive from Chatham, New Jersey. The traffic was heavy most of the way, but never completely congested. On the way I passed a few miles from the national mall in Washington D.C. and I was able to see (again) the Washington Monument and the Capitol from the highway, yay.
Wow, the installation has completed. Let me reboot and continue this post after that.
Okay, back. Anyways, I am staying in a town house in Durham that I share with two other Duke students, the house is really nice and my room is several times larger than the tiny thing I had in New Jersey.
I am more or less settled now, I will use next week to hopefully get a North Carolina drivers license and get my car titled here. I could write a lot of other stuff here, but I feel more like playing with my laptop now, see ya :)

Beautiful

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I am currently sitting with Maritza on some steps at the main campus of Columbia University on upper Manhatten, right between the law library and the general library. This place is beautiful, it is 8pm and it is slowly getting dark but I am still sitting here in my shorts and a t-shirt. I am supposed to do a detailed review of a paper by friday, so I should really get back to that, just wanted to send out a ping – I am still alive :)

I arrived on friday and spent the rest of the day trying to stay awake with Ash, my australian friend from AT&T. I spent four hours saturday morning trying to get a temporary registration for my car at the New Jersey DMV, which I finally got (hint: It is much easier if you have a US drivers license). Ash and I then went in to New York and met up with Maritza and Haakon in Central Park. We ended up going to a few bars near Columbia and I spend the night on a huuge air matress in Maritzas Columbia apartment.
The next day we went to a Yankees game agains Tamba bay, we had bleacher seats and sat in the sun for a few hours before we agreed that the Yankees were too far behind to win. Ash, Maritza and I then cooked a big meal, complete with deserts and appetizers. We went to bed early and did a tour of the UN head quarters after a very late breakfast at 12pm.

Well, I should really be doing that review, see ya :)