Playing DVD movies

Playing DVD movies works fine, when e.g. using the program totem. However, after clicking on the pull-down-menu 'Movie' and 'Play Disc' you may get the error message 'Failed to play Audio/Video Disc - Failed to open device /dev/hdc for reading: Permission denied'.
You may resolve this by two ways: make yourself to user=root and start e.g. the program 'totem' in order to view the DVD. The second (and better) possibility is to enter as user=root your username in the file /etc/group as follows:
cdrom:x:24:hal,username
The reason is, that /dev/dvd is a link to /dev/hdc and this device file belongs to user=root and group=cdrom. So by adding the user username to the group cdrom, allows this user to read from the DVD-device and viewing the DVD should be possible.
However, should you - upon starting the movie - get the message "Totem could not play 'dvd:/'. The movie could not be read", then you probably have a copy-protected DVD. Since you have paid for the DVD, you should also be able to view it! You now should do the following:

- Add the following two lines to your file /etc/apt/aources.list
# For reading encrypted DVDs:
deb http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/debian woody main
- Then enter: apt-get update; apt-get install libdvdcss2

LAN connection

Configuring the LAN (cable) ethernet interface is relatively easy, but you have to note, that there is a change between kernel 2.6.10 and 2.6.11! For kernel 2.6.10 the LAN interface is 'eth0', while for kernel 2.6.11 the LAN interface is 'eth1'! Create a file /etc/network/interfaces with the content

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

iface eth1 inet dhcp    # eth0 if you use kernel 2.6.10

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

iface eth1 inet static    # eth0 if you use kernel 2.6.10
   address 192.168.0.16       # modify to your situation
   netmask 255.255.255.0      # modify to your situation
   network 192.168.0.0        # modify to your situation
   broadcast 192.168.0.255    # modify to your situation
   gateway 192.168.0.1        # modify to your situation

WLAN - wireless networking

Wireless LAN (WLAN) turned out to be a tricky thing...
Especially, since there is again a change between kernel 2.6.10 and kernel 2.6.11: the interface of the internal wlan is 'wlan0' for kernel 2.6.10, while it is 'eth0' for kernel 2.6.11!
You may find out, what your wlan-interface is, by entering the command:
iwlist scan
In order to install the appropriate driver for the internal WLAN interface, visit http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/ and read the INSTALL information. Download the newest version of ipw2200 (I took ipw2200-1.0.1.tgz, the newest version is ipw2200-1.0.3.tgz) and also download the latest binary firmware image (in my case I clicked on v0.19-current, clicked on 'I agree' and got ipw2200-fw-2.2.tgz).

- Put the two compressed tar-files into /usr/local/src
- cd /usr/local/src
- tar zxvf ipw2200-1.0.3.tgz
- cd ipw2200-1.0.3
- make
- make install
Now the firmware... we better put this stuff in a separate directory:
- mkdir ipw2200-firmware
- mv ipw2200-1.0.3.tgz ipw2200-firmware
- cd ipw2200-firmware
- tar zxvf ipw2200-fw-2.2.tgz
- cp -p *.fw /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware/
Make sure you have sysfs mounted (see description in the INSTALL file)
- modprobe ipw2200
- In the file /etc/modules add the following:
# for internal wlan:
ipw2200

The most important issue is, that the internal WLAN-interface must be configured as 'wlan0' (kernel 2.6.10) or as 'eth1' (kernel 2.6.11) !
In addition, it is important that besides the file /etc/network/interfaces and the file /etc/resolv.conf also corresponding iwconfig-commands are entered (see below).

The file /etc/network/interface should look as follows for a wireless connection with the internal WLAN interface:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

iface eth0 inet static    # use wlan0 instead of eth0 for kernel 2.6.10
   wireless_mode managed
   wireless essid yourESSID
   wireless_enc on
   wlan_ng_hostwep false
   wlan_ng_default_key_id 0
   wlan_ng_authtype sharedkey
   wlan_ng_key0 18XXXXX_Your-WEP-Key_XXXXX14

   address 192.168.0.16       # modify to your situation
   netmask 255.255.255.0      # modify to your situation
   network 192.168.0.0        # modify to your situation
   broadcast 192.168.0.255    # modify to your situation
   gateway 192.168.0.1        # modify to your situation

   ifdown -a
   ifup lo
   INTERFACE='eth0'    # eth0 for internal WLAN; eth2  for Cisco Aironet card
   iwconfig $INTERFACE essid YourESSID
   iwconfig $INTERFACE key 18XXXXX_Your-WEP-Key_XXXXX14
   iwconfig $INTERFACE channel 6
   ifup $INTERFACE

iface=`cat /etc/picofirewall/picofirewall.conf | grep ^IFACE= | cut -d= -f 2`
if test "$iface" != "$INTERFACE" ; then
   pfconf='/etc/picofirewall/picofirewall.conf'
   cat $pfconf | sed s/IFACE=$iface/IFACE=$INTERFACE/ > /tmp/pfconfnew.$$
   mv /tmp/pfconfnew.$$ /etc/picofirewall/picofirewall.conf
   /etc/init.d/picofirewall start
fi

Suspend to RAM / Suspend to disk

Suspend to RAM works fine with kernel 2.6.11 - first enter in the file /boot/grub/menu.lst the line
# kopt=root=/dev/hda7 ro resume=/dev/hda6 ro root=/dev/hda7 ro resume=/dev/hda6vga=normal acpi_sleep=s3_bios
where in my case hda7 is the partition with the root-directory and hda6 is the partition with the swap partition (see in your file /etc/fstab).
Now, as user=root just enter the command:
echo mem >/sys/power/state
In order to wake-up the machine, press the power-button (now blinking every couple of seconds in orange color). The button will then light in green color and after about 1 minute and 43 seconds the machine will be up again - including the network!
Now I could speed-up things: Having entered the following in the file /etc/X11/XF86Config-4:

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "Generic Video Card"
        Driver          "i810"
#next line for suspend-to-RAM working properly:
        Option          "VBERestore"    "true"
EndSection

Powernowd

Saving power while on battery (and while thinking or reading) can be done by installing 'powernowd', should you have a 2.6 kernel. This installation and configuration is described on our page http://www.seismo.ethz.ch/linux/debian_software_installation.html.
The corresponding tool to turn powernowd on and of, is described on our page powernowd-toggle.

Please note, that obviously the maximum speed of the CPU is determined somehow during the boot process: I noticed the following behaviour:

Booting while AC is connected: Min. CPU frequ. is 136 MHz, max. is ~1100 MHz
Booting while on battery     : Min. CPU frequ. is 74 MHz, max. is ~600 MHz

Brightness of the screen

The Vaio has an excellent screen, also usable outdoors. However, indoors its brightness is rather high. In order to dim the screen, I first did the following:

1. modprobe sonypi
2. add a line with 'sonypi' in /etc/modules
3. apt-get install spicctrl
4. Enter 'spicctrl' to see the options

1.  Download the driver sony_acpi, available on http://popies.net/sonypi/
    on a link at the bottom of the web-page
2.  Download sony_acpi.tar.gz
3.  gunzip sony_acpi.tar.gz
4.  tar xvf sony_acpi.tar
5.  cd sony_acpi
6.  make (ignore the warning messages)
7.  as root do: cp sony_acpi.ko /lib/modules/2.6.11-1-686/kernel/drivers/acpi/
    (where you have to use your kernel-version, if yours is not 2.6.11-1-686)
8.  depmod -a
9.  modprobe sony_acpi
10. Now you find an entry in /proc:  /proc/acpi/sony/brt
11. The value of /proc/acpi/sony/brt may be between 1 (relatively dark) and 8 (bright)
12. The brightness of the screen may now be dimmed a bit with the command:
    echo "4" > /proc/acpi/sony/brt
13. My thanks to Stelian Pop, who wrote this driver!

Bluetooth

Since I do not use Bluetooth on my Vaio, I cannot give recommendations here. However, I wanted at least to turn off the bluetooth interface in order to save power.
What you in order to do this, is the following:

1. modprobe sonypi
2. add a line with 'sonypi' in /etc/modules
3. apt-get install spicctrl
4. Enter 'spicctrl' to see the options

#!/bin/sh -e

# /etc/init.d/local_settings      Urs Kradolfer, 20Mar2005, 15May2005

case "$1" in
start|restart)
#  Set screen-light to medium strength:
   test -x /usr/local/sbin/dimselect && echo 4 | /usr/local/sbin/dimselect
#  Turn off bluetooth interface:
   test -x /usr/bin/spicctrl && spicctrl -l 0
    ;;
stop|reload|force-reload)
    ;;
esac

Links

http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/sony.html
http://xyxyx.org/laptop-sony-vgn-t1xp/
http://usefulinc.com/edd/notes/UbuntuOnSonyVaioTRSeries
http://markadavis.org/vgnt150.html