Fedora 2 - Vaio VGN-A17GP, Sound, USB, ACPI & Firewire problems

[coops1 0]

This topic was initiated in another forum, link here, but i thought my remaining questions better suited here, and reason for original post solved.

 

Used Linux for a while, mainly as a security audit tool and various servers, but now i thought i would try and get it up and running as a replacement for XP......time will tell if that was a sane decision, but i am adventurous.

 

I have successfully installed Fedora Core 2 onto my new Sony Vaio VGN-A17GP. Need kernel option acpi=off otherwise get kernel panic, see here for more info on install and stuff i tryed to get it to boot.

 

Successfully installed the wireless card, actually thought this would be the hardest (ipw2200 from sourceforge), but Sound, USB, and Firewire do not work properly or at all and no ACPI features due to acpi=off at boot, cant leave this out otherwise kernel panic.

 

SOUND - I get an error when X windows starts when sound system set to Auto detect. Doing a Sound system probe reports Module:ssnd-intel8x0 sound system and a test sound plays eventually, but i put a CD in and no audio.

Output from lspci

Multimedia Audio Controller: Intel Corp (ICH4) AC'97 Aidio Controller (rev 03)

 

USB (3 USB 2 ports) - When i plug a USB 1 memory key will work but system freezes for a minute when i plug it in and remove it (have to mount/umount manually not really a biggy). dmesg reports a number of things when i plug it in including attempting to mount the floppy image want to get rid of this as will not need floppy). USB 2 key doesnt seem to work, dmesg reports pretty much the same thing as USB 1 key, fdisk -l reports a whole stack of partitions on the key (actually only one fat part), attempt to mount and system hangs for a while dmesg has a lot of buffer errors.

Output from lspci

USB controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB (ICH4) USB UHCI #1 (rev 03)

USB controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB (ICH4) USB UHCI #2 (rev 03)

USB controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB (ICH4) USB UHCI #3 (rev 03)

USB controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB (ICH4) USB2 EHCI controller (rev 03)

USB Controller: NEC Corp USB (rev 43)

USB Controller: NEC Corp USB (rev 43)

USB Controller: NEC Corp USB 2.0 (rev 04)

 

Output from dmesg | grep usb (after boot)

usbcore: registerd new driver usbfs

usbcore: registerd new driver hub

usbcore: registerd new driver hiddev

usbcore: registerd new driver hid

drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c v2.0USB HID core driver

 

output from dmesg | grep USB

drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c v2.0USB HID core driver

ehci_hcd new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1

ehci_hcd USB 2.0 enabled EHCI 1.0

hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found

ehci_hcd new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2

ehci_hcd USB 2.0 enabled EHCI 1.0

hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found

ohci_hcd: USB 1.1 OHCI Driver PCI

ohci_hcd new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3

hub 3-0:1.0: USB hub found

ohci_hcd new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 4

hub 4-0:1.0: USB hub found

usb UHCI driver v2.2

ohci_hcd new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 5

hub 5-0:1.0: USB hub found

ohci_hcd new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 6

hub 6-0:1.0: USB hub found

ohci_hcd new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 7

hub 7-0:1.0: USB hub found

 

ACPI - no good due to acpi=off at boot, attempting to turn this on always results in kernel panic. Have also tryed acpi=noirq with same result, it did work fine under Fedora Core 1 (battery meter atleast, never tryed anything else). Priority, as i need battery meter (at least) when not plugged in.

 

Firewire - lspci reports Firewire Texas Instruments - Unknown device. I guessing the unknown device means i need to find appropriate driver module and install, simliar to wireless. Plugged in a firewaire drive and nothing happens havent checked output from dmesg, this is the lowest on list of things to get working.

 

Any ideas appreciated.

Thanks

[coops1 0]

USB- Forget about the USB issues, it turned out that it was a problem with the USB key i was using. I have tryed a couple of others, including USB HD, and they worked OK. Still unable to get that particular USB key to work, it works fine under windows, fdisk -l either freezes or reports some interesting results. dmesg gives the usual output up until it assigns it a dev name such as sda1, it freezes at sda: . Tried to repartition it which reported that it was now blank with no partitions, i then put it back into windows so it could set up fat partition but it could still see all the data. Its a PQI USB 2.0 256M key if anyone is interested.

 

ACPI - Still no further luck with this one.

 

Firewire - Looking at the config file in /boot it looks like IEEE1394 support hasnt been compiled in to the kernel or as a module. First attempt at new kernel build failed to load with error unable to mount / , bad option =LABEL=/.

 

 

 

[wrosa 0]

I see you are having problems with Sony Vaio vgn-a17gp. I have the same sony and also had problems with Fedora 2. I switched to fedora core 3 test and all problems have gone away, have not tried firewire but have no need but all else works fine.

Fedora is just great on this lovely laptop.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Regards Wayne Rosa