Brian Litzinger's Linux vs Sony VAIO VGN-FZ470E/B effort

Linux vs Sony VAIO VGN-FZ470E/B effort
By Brian Litzinger (last updated 10/4/2008)

FZ470E/B description at Sony Style Link

I installed Ubuntu 8.04 desktop edition on this system.

Below I outline my troubles and solutions.

This laptop uses the Nvidia 8400M GPU.

There is at this time no way to adjust the backlight intensity. We are waiting for Nvidia to release something to fix this problem.

You can, in the mean time, sort of adjust the screen intensity using the 'nvidia-settings' utility.

Bluetooth did not work for me until I added hciconfig hci0 reset to /etc/rc.local

Worked fine reading some BD-R media I had written with an LG GGW-H20L BD-RW.

My laptop has BIOS version 'R2110J7'.

I used the SYMCMOS.EXE utility to modify the BIOS to enable the VT bit.

Specifically you need to set reg 02D3 to 0001

this link tells you what to do

I have been unable to get external audio via the audio out jack.

In order to use my audio headset I used one of those little USBaudio plugins and used the usbaudio output to plug in the headset audio.

The microphone input via the microphone jack works correctly.

The internal speakers work fine.

Works fine, and with skype too.

Works fine.

The Fn and Ctrl keys are reversed via what I am used to.