Ubuntu Wiki

• Contact: MathiasLaurin

• Make: Sony
• Model: Vaio type G (VGN-G1)

• Website: http://www.jp.sonystyle.com/Business/Vaio/Product/G/index.html (Japanese only: beautiful and expensive ultramobile PC)

Current Issues

• The Ricoh SD card reader is not recognized (kernel 2.6.17-11-generic). This is a kernel/acpi issue and is being worked on.
• I need to reload ipw3945 if I boot with the wifi switch off and want to use it afterwards (1).
• Gnome cannot set the screen brightness (but the keyboard switches work) (2).

System Info

bios-version:R0061N5
system-manufacturer:Sony Corporation
system-product-name:VGN-G1ABNS
system-version:J0029DGK

Hardware details

Notes

• (0) I have the English keyboard, this Vaio being released for Japan only as of today 2007-03-07, the default keyboard layout is Japanese.
• (1) Wireless

I installed ipw3945d by hand from http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/ipw3945d by copying it into /usr/local/sbin and wrote the followin startup script.

/var/log/acpid reports

[Wed Mar  7 18:19:44 2007] completed event "sony/hotkey SPIC 00000001 0000003d"
[Wed Mar  7 18:20:55 2007] received event "sony/hotkey SPIC 00000001 0000003c"
[Wed Mar  7 18:20:55 2007] notifying client 4176[106:110]
[Wed Mar  7 18:20:55 2007] notifying client 4098[0:0]

when switching off (SPIC ... 3d) and on (SPIC ... 3c) the big wireless switch on the computer. Hence, if I find how ACPI is dealt with in Ubuntu, I will get the switch to (un)load the module and start/stop the daemon as needed.

/etc/init.d/my-ipw3945

#
# Start or stop ipw3945 regulatory daemon.
#
# Written by Mathias Laurin adapted from wifi-radar by Ante Karamatic

IPW_BIN="/usr/local/sbin/ipw3945d"
IPW_MOD="ipw3945"

. /lib/lsb/init-functions

case "${1}" in
("start")
        log_begin_msg "Loading ipw3945 module..."
        modprobe "$IPW_MOD"
        log_begin_msg "Starting ipw3945 regulatory daemon..."
        "$IPW_BIN" --quiet >/dev/null 2>&1 &
        exit $?
        ;;
("stop")
        log_begin_msg "Stopping ipw3945 regulatory daemon..."
        "$IPW_BIN" --kill >/dev/null 2>&1
        log_begin_msg "Unload ipw3945 module..."
        modprobe -r "$IPW_MOD"
        exit $?
        ;;
("restart")
        "${0}" stop
        "${0}" start
        ;;
(*)
        log_success_msg "Usage: /etc/init.d/my-ipw3945 {start|stop|restart}" >&2
        exit 3
        ;;
esac

• and the hardware switch works for both wireless and bluetooth (the switch works, I have not tried BT).
• (2) Current screen brightness is shown at /proc/acpi/sony/brightness; there also exists a /proc/acpi/sony/brightness_default. Maximum/defaults value is 8 (and I like 6). However

 %sudo echo -n 6 > /proc/acpi/sony/brightness
 zsh: permission denied: /proc/acpi/sony/brightness

even after a successful chmod to 644. If any relevant:

 %cat /proc/acpi/video/GFX0/LCD/state 
 state:     <not supported>
 query:     <not supported>
 % cat /proc/acpi/video/GFX0/LCD/brightness
 levels:  100 100 4 16 28 40 52 64 76 88 100
 current: 0

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