Ubuntu & Sony Vaio: Problems

[ramnex45]

Hello everyone,
I'd like to ask you something, maybe someone can help.
Now, I've never used Linux before, and I read that Ubuntu would be a good starting point, however, I have a Sony Vaio (VPCF) Laptop and there are a couple of things that don't work:

No sound

No touchpad

Fn - brightness keys don't work

I tried Ubuntu 10.04 from a live-cd. Is there a way I can solve these problems?
I appreciate any help.

[electroman6913]

Have you tried installing updates yet

[nujinini]

Hello everyone,
I'd like to ask you something, maybe someone can help.
Now, I've never used Linux before, and I read that Ubuntu would be a good starting point, however, I have a Sony Vaio (VPCF) Laptop and there are a couple of things that don't work:

No sound

No touchpad

Fn - brightness keys don't work

I tried Ubuntu 10.04 from a live-cd. Is there a way I can solve these problems?
I appreciate any help.

You might want to consider to install your ubuntu dual boot with your present OS>

Then you can make a full update of your ubuntu system

Fn - brightness keys don't work

This is a known bug in linux kernel 2.6.30.x.x and above.
What happens when you execute

xrandr --output LVDS --set BACKLIGHT_CONTROL native

in the terminal using your Live CD?

[alf55]

A linux pre-installed vendor, EmperorLinux - Linux Laptops and Notebooks, sells the Sony VAIO F-13 installed with everything working (but they used their own kernel.)

The site, Debian HCL; Debian GNU/Linux device driver check & report, which is put together for debian packages uses the output of

lspci -n

and reports package names and version for the support. I often use it for new hardware via a booatble cd/dvd/usb to get the information for Fedora, Gentoo, RHEL, etc.

[pfred1]

Tux plays rough are you really sure you want to try to tackle your various issues? If it was me I would probably just run Linux on a machine it ran a bit easier on. Things like sound and pointing devices should just work today. If they do not you are up for some serious sleuthing to find out why.

If you really want to just dive right in then these two commands might get you started:

dmesg | less

and

tail -f /var/log/kern.log

Good luck and welcome to Linux.

[techieMoe]

Hello everyone,
I'd like to ask you something, maybe someone can help.
Now, I've never used Linux before, and I read that Ubuntu would be a good starting point, however, I have a Sony Vaio (VPCF) Laptop and there are a couple of things that don't work:

No sound

No touchpad

Fn - brightness keys don't work

I tried Ubuntu 10.04 from a live-cd. Is there a way I can solve these problems?
I appreciate any help.

Are these problems still present in the Ubuntu 10.10 livecd? I have a VPCF myself, but I haven't tried putting Linux on it yet.

[MASONTX]

Don't give up. If you don't want to take the time to resolve these issues, go to distrowatch.com and download some other live cd's to try. Some hardware plays better with one distro than another, usually you can find a distro that will recognize your hardware.

[tyronet2000]

Hello everyone,
I'd like to ask you something, maybe someone can help.
Now, I've never used Linux before, and I read that Ubuntu would be a good starting point, however, I have a Sony Vaio (VPCF) Laptop and there are a couple of things that don't work:

No sound

No touchpad

Fn - brightness keys don't work

I tried Ubuntu 10.04 from a live-cd. Is there a way I can solve these problems?
I appreciate any help.

Hi, I had similar problems upgrading to Win7. To be honest I would get rid of the Vaio for a different laptop which isn't "Hardware" locked to the manufacturer. In o ther words drivers freely available for wireless, sound etc. I have a Samsung R519 dual booting Ubuntu 10.04 and Win7 professional. Also previous HP laptops have been very good for the reasons above.