tl;dr: This post describes how well Ubuntu GNU/Linux works on the Sony Vaio VPCYB2M1E since there’s otherwise not much information on the web about the hardware support for this model on Linux. In summary, so far it seems that this is a good choice for running Ubuntu on so long as you use the 32-bit version, but these are still early days.
At the moment, looking for a new computer in the netbook space which runs Linux well is a rather frustrating exercise. This is chiefly because:
- The market moves fast, and often there’s little information on the web about Linux support for the models that are actually available in the shops.
- Frustratingly, it seems that some companies change the hardware in their machines without changing the model number.
- What random people on Ubuntu forums consider to count as “working well” can include “won’t suspend to RAM” or “ethernet doesn’t work”.
- Most reviews of netbooks by technology journalists are written with a totally unhelpful set of assumptions, such as the following:
- They assume that you wouldn’t use a netbook as your main machine. This might be true if you use Windows, but I used Ubuntu on the Samsung NC-10 as my main development machine for a long time. Sure, it’s not the same experience as working on a powerful desktop system with multiple monitors, but you can get Real Work done quite happily nonetheless.
- You see netbooks which are around the £400 price point denounced as “not knowing what they’re trying to be”, as if there aren’t customers who want the portability and battery life of a £200 netbook, but would be happy to pay a bit more for improved performance and a slightly better screen. Their frequent suggestion that you might as well buy some powerful but bulky laptop for this money is completely missing the point.
Anyway, if you’re looking for one of these slightly-better-than-a-netbook machines to run Ubuntu on, you might consider the VPCYB2M1E – the Sony Vaio Y series that is available in the UK at the moment (summer 2011). We believe that the “/S” at the end of the model number just means that it’s the silver rather than pink version. This is based around the AMD E-350, so we initially chose to use the 64-bit version of Natty – however, due to some freezes that don’t seem to occur with the 32-bit flavour, we reinstalled with the 32-bit version. (See below for more details.)
The specifications of this laptop can be found on Sony’s website. The weight (at 1.46kg) is slightly more than I’d like, but the 1366 x 768 screen is very nice.
First we checked by booting from a live USB stick that enough of the hardware seemed to work (wireless, sound, graphics) that we were willing to risk wiping all the existing partitions and claiming all the disk space for Ubuntu. On the second laptop I installed Natty alongside Windows 7, which worked fine. (I note that the installation of Natty is very slick now.)
At the end of this post, we’ve include the output of “cat /proc/cpuinfo” and “lspci -v”, for those who are interested in the details. There’s a summary of what we’ve tested so far below. However, first a description of the only big problem we’ve seen so far:
I/O Related Freezes
When using rsync to copy large files onto this system, we found that the interface would freeze to a greater or lesser extent. This seemed to be reproducible with any command that wrote a lot of data to disk (e.g. even dd from /dev/zero) but was only present on 64-bit installations, not 32-bit. This problem is described here:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+question/159329
… and linked to a bug that might be related. However, since this didn’t seem to be a problem with the 32-bit installation, we didn’t pursue it further. (However, it should be still reproducible with the 64-bit Live USB stick.)
Ethernet
Works fine out-of-the-box
Wireless
Works out-of-the-box
Power Management
Suspend-to-RAM
Works out-of-the-box. (When suspended, the power light glows bright orange, though, which is somewhat annoying.)
Hibernate (Suspend-to-Disk)
Works out-of-the-box
Special Keys
Work out-of-the-box
Sound
Speakers
Work out-of-the-box – pretty loud. I’ve found on one occasion that the sound stopped working after a while and I had to reboot, but I need to investigate that more.
Microphone
Works out-of-the-box, a bit noisy, but we haven’t tried to change any of the mixer settings yet.
Graphics
With the default driver, some of the desktop effects flickered a great deal, and the desktop background showed some flickering. Installing the closed source ATI drivers (via the “Additional Drivers” in the System Settings) seems to have fixed this.
External monitor
– Not tested yet. In particular we need to check how large a resolution it can drive.
Card Readers
The SD card reader and the slot for Sony’s memory sticks both work fine.
HDMI output
– Not tested yet. (No HDMI monitor available.)
Webcam
Works out-of-the-box
Touchpad
Works fine out-of-the-box. Changing the scrolling behaviour (from dragging on the right hand side to two-fingered scrolling) can be easily done with the mouse properties.
Hardware Details
$ lspci -v 00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Pavilion DM1Z-3000 Host bridge Subsystem: Sony Corporation Device 9082 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 0 00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Device 9802 (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) Subsystem: Sony Corporation Device 9082 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 44 Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M] I/O ports at 3000 [size=256] Memory at f0200000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256K] Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: fglrx_pci Kernel modules: fglrx, radeon 00:01.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc Device 1314 Subsystem: Sony Corporation Device 9082 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 42 Memory at f0244000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel 00:04.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Device 1512 (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 00002000-00002fff Memory behind bridge: f0100000-f01fffff Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:06.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Device 1514 (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=02, sec-latency=0 Memory behind bridge: f0000000-f00fffff Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:11.0 SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 40) (prog-if 01 [AHCI 1.0]) Subsystem: Sony Corporation Device 9082 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 19 I/O ports at 3118 [size=8] I/O ports at 3124 [size=4] I/O ports at 3110 [size=8] I/O ports at 3120 [size=4] I/O ports at 3100 [size=16] Memory at f024c000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: ahci Kernel modules: ahci 00:12.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller (prog-if 10 [OHCI]) Subsystem: Sony Corporation Device 9082 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 18 Memory at f024b000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K] Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd 00:12.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller (prog-if 20 [EHCI]) Subsystem: Sony Corporation Device 9082 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 17 Memory at f024a000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd 00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB OHCI0 Controller (prog-if 10 [OHCI]) Subsystem: Sony Corporation Device 9082 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 18 Memory at f0249000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K] Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd 00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 USB EHCI Controller (prog-if 20 [EHCI]) Subsystem: Sony Corporation Device 9082 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 17 Memory at f0248000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd 00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 42) Subsystem: Sony Corporation Device 9082 Flags: 66MHz, medium devsel Kernel driver in use: piix4_smbus Kernel modules: sp5100_tco, i2c-piix4 00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) (rev 40) Subsystem: Sony Corporation Device 9082 Flags: bus master, slow devsel, latency 64, IRQ 16 Memory at f0240000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel 00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB7x0/SB8x0/SB9x0 LPC host controller (rev 40) Subsystem: Sony Corporation Device 9082 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 0 00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge (rev 40) (prog-if 01 [Subtractive decode]) Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64 Bus: primary=00, secondary=03, subordinate=03, sec-latency=64 00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 0 (rev 43) Flags: fast devsel 00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 1 Flags: fast devsel 00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 2 Flags: fast devsel 00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 3 Flags: fast devsel Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: k10temp Kernel modules: k10temp 00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 4 Flags: fast devsel 00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 6 Flags: fast devsel 00:18.6 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 5 Flags: fast devsel 00:18.7 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 12h/14h Processor Function 7 Flags: fast devsel 01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications AR8131 Gigabit Ethernet (rev c0) Subsystem: Sony Corporation Device 9082 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 43 Memory at f0100000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256K] I/O ports at 2000 [size=128] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: atl1c Kernel modules: atl1c 02:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01) Subsystem: Foxconn International, Inc. Device e017 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18 Memory at f0000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: ath9k Kernel modules: ath9k
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0 vendor_id : AuthenticAMD cpu family : 20 model : 1 model name : AMD E-350 Processor stepping : 0 cpu MHz : 800.000 cache size : 512 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 2 core id : 0 cpu cores : 2 apicid : 0 initial apicid : 0 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 6 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc rep_good nopl nonstop_tsc extd_apicid aperfmperf pni monitor ssse3 cx16 popcnt lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch ibs skinit wdt arat npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save pausefilter bogomips : 3192.53 TLB size : 1024 4K pages clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: ts ttp tm stc 100mhzsteps hwpstate processor : 1 vendor_id : AuthenticAMD cpu family : 20 model : 1 model name : AMD E-350 Processor stepping : 0 cpu MHz : 800.000 cache size : 512 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 2 core id : 1 cpu cores : 2 apicid : 1 initial apicid : 1 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 6 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc rep_good nopl nonstop_tsc extd_apicid aperfmperf pni monitor ssse3 cx16 popcnt lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch ibs skinit wdt arat npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save pausefilter bogomips : 3192.05 TLB size : 1024 4K pages clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: ts ttp tm stc 100mhzsteps hwpstate
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