swampgasotium cum dignitate

Note: See note about using XUbuntu 7.10 with this machine at the end of this article.

The PCG-C1VN is a fairly old Sony Ultra-Portable that ships with a special version of Windows ME. This machine comes standard with a Transmeta Crusoe CPU and 128 meg of RAM, of which about 20meg is used for Crusoe isntruction caching. Having recently gotten one of these for free, I decided to see if I could get rid of ME and install a relatively new (as of this writing) distro. I picked Ubuntu, since the live disk booted with no need to pass any special kernel options — a good sign that a full installation would be rather painless.

Media

I used the 6.06 “Alternate Install” disk, since I’d be installing from a CD, and would have no network card installed. If you don’t have the CD/DVC unit, I’m not sure how you’ll manage — I don’t know if Ubuntu has a network install available or not (I normally use Gentoo and am new to Ubuntu).

Getting started

The alternate install disk will allow you to choose from a few install options — I used “OEM”. From there, it’s pretty much just a matter of following the prompts — the install should be largely painless. Do not, however, boot directly into Ubuntu after the install has completed. Instead, hit <esc> at the grub prompt, boot into the maintenance config, and follow the post-install instructions below to get X working correctly.

Post-Install — getting X working

Ubuntu does not deal correctly with the Vaio display out of the box. The first thing you need to do is to modify the grub menuconfig and remove the “splash” option from the default kernel startup line. This option seems to completely hose the vaio display.

Next, because the default Ubuntu install fails to correctly detect the Vaio display driver, you’ll need to create a new /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. run “Xorg –configure”. This should create the file “xorg.conf.new” in your root directory. Note that the mouse will be detected incorrectly, so you’ll need to edit this file, changing the reference to “/dev/mouse” to “/dev/psaux”.

To test the new X config, run “Xorg -config ./xorg.conf.new”. This should bring up an empty X desktop sized correctly. Exit by pressing Ctrl-Alt-backspace. Copy xorg.conf.new to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

Booting and network installation

You should now be able to boot into Ubuntu. Since the vaio has no built in network card, you’ll need to unplug the cdrom before booting and install a NIC in the pcmcia slot. I used a DWL-G630 wireless card which ubuntu detected. I created a small script to init the card correctly for my network. Obviously, your steps will be different depending on the NIC you have.

Final thoughts

This is a pretty lightweight machine, and Ubuntu is a pretty heavyweight distro. It does seem to grind a bit, but I’m really just getting started — ultimately, I may try a lighter distro or see if Ubuntu allows me to trim a little fat from the install. I do get a minor complaint about the meye camera driver at startup, which I think can be easily fixed. Sound seems to work fine. That’s about it — you can email me at the above address if you have any other questions about Ubuntu and this machine.

Update:Disabling GDM and using a lighter-weight desktop works wonders for performance. I’ve switched to openbox (and sometimes ICE) and see a much more responsive system. I think the full Gnome desktop is probably just too much for this little guy.

Update to the Update (1/2008): I’ve switched over to XUbuntu 7.10 on this machine. It installed with no real hitches, but seemed to be missing the sonypi support. Not a big issue, as we’re using as an internet radio/mp3 player in an entertainment center, but I may look into this a bit further if time permits. Gnome is still a pretty heavyweight desktop for this little box — you’ll get better response using a slimmer desktop as mentioned above.