Thursday, January 31, 2013

Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal on Sony Vaio X

Ubuntu now works completely out of the box for the Sony Vaio X. One can forget about using the Unity desktop environment though - it's beyond sluggish. Moving back to the fallback/older GUI is the perfect option. Just follow the usual guidelines for installing Ubuntu from USB.

As always, take precaution before completely removing Windows if you want to get the WWAN 3G modem working. See step 3 of this post.

Confirmed to be working:
  • Display (GMA500, info)
  • External display/VGA (with Fn+F7 - non mirror dual untested)
  • Audio (with keyboard volume control/mute / Fn+F2,F3,F4)
  • Webcam (with Skype)
  • Trackpad (with edge scrolling and two-finger scrolling)
  • Bluetooth (with Mouse and Headset)
  • Youtube video/audio (full screen working but rather laggy/chippy)
  • WLAN
Not working:
  • Display brightness keyboard controls / Fn+F5,F6 (adjusts ok but has no effect on display)
Not tested:
  • WWAN 3G modem (Qualcomm Gobi 2000)
  • Hibernate/sleep (will try and close lid after publishing this article - EDIT: ALERT! Had to re-install everything after Sleep-test !!! :-)
My tweaks:
$ sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback # And log in with Classic No Effects ditching Unity and Compiz
$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout 'menu:minimize,maximize,close' # move windows buttons to the right 
gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type=string 
'menu:minimize,maximize,close' # again for chrome
$ gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences always-use-location-entry true # Fix broken address bar in Nautilus
Remove top desktop panel (place tray on the bottom right and set up Ubuntu Main menu bottom left using Alt-Right clicks), Tweak my MS-mouse speed