Laptop Linux: Red Hat 9.0 and SUSE 10.0 to 10.3 on Sony Vaio SRX-51P/A, N505X and Asus eee PC701

In early 2000 I acquired a Sony Vaio PCG-N505X, and ran Red Hat Linux 6.2 on it for nearly 4 years. In mid-2003, it became time for some new hardware and software, so I went for its descendant, the Vaio SRX-51P/A and installed Red Hat 9.0 on that.

Having successfully got RH9.0 up and running on the SRX-51, I then cloned the config from its hard disk onto a new hard disk which I brain-transplanted into the N505X.

Although both my (non-edible :-) laptops are still going hardware-wise, Linux in 2006 came a long way since Red Hat 9.0, and I successfully installed SUSE 10.0 on my SRX-51 and upgraded its internal WiFi card to 802.11a/b/g.

SUSE 10.0 works very nicely on this laptop, mostly out the box without any of the kernel-tweaking needed for Red Hat. Upgrading the internal miniPCI network card to a 802.11a/b/g Netegriti WiFi card was also fairly straightforward, and it works well. I was even able to get suspend-to-disk and a bluetooth mouse working at long last :-)

I also tried SUSE 10.1 on this laptop, I'd strongly recommend against this for the following reasons:

• The package management on most versions of SUSE 10.1 is hopelessly broken.
• Working drivers for the Intel i810 video chipset on this laptop are not present in SUSE 10.1.
  This appears to be fixed in openSUSE 10.3.
• The madwifi drivers for the Atheros chipset of my internal upgraded wireless card need to be
  downloaded seperately from here.
  The drivers for the original Orinoco 802.11b wireless card supplied in this laptop seem okay.

Overall I still mostly like the openSUSE experience, and have openSUSE 10.2 now working well on my new desktop.

Dec 2007

Unfortunately time and travel are taking their toll on my trusty SRX-51, and it is starting to show its mileage. I have just bought a tiny new Asus eee laptop :-) It is great this comes with Linux pre-installed, though I was not massively impressed with the Xandros distribution it came with.

As a consequence I have got openSUSE 10.3 working on it, a tight fit into the 4Gb internal flash, but doable. A summary of how to do this with grateful thanks to all the folks at the EEE User is available here.

I may still buy another Vaio, but the eee is fun meantime.

Thanks to all the people who have contributed entries to Linux Laptop pages on Vaio models, and in particular those whose links I have listed for convincing me that it was even worth trying to get Linux up on these nice pieces of hardware.