This website describes my experience installing linux (RedHat80) on my Sony Vaio GRZ610 laptop. I provide this information in good faith and the entire risk as to the quality and performance of your Laptop/Operating System is with you. Should this information prove incorrect, you assume the cost of all necessary servicing, repair or correction. This process is not for the faint-hearted and assumes you've a reasonable *nix system administrator experience.

RedHat 8.0 Installation
Problem Areas

Redhat 8.0 Installation
I got Windows XP pre-installed on my Vaio GRZ610. This time around I decided to make my laptop dual-boot XP and Linux. Disk Druid has always given me problems with the partitioning, so I decided to try BootIt-NG. BootIt-NG is a shareware, for which you have to pay after 30 days of use. Since, I used it only for a few minutes (for resizing my windows partition), I do not have to pay them. This utility is fairly intuitive to use (for the experienced user) and I recommend it enthusiastically.
I had no trouble with the linux install. I chose to install all the developer's tools, since I intend to use the laptop mainly for kernel hacking. Within 2 hours, I managed to resize the windows partition, install linux and test both the OSes.

Problem Areas

• PCMCIA - The very first time I booted into Linux (with my wireless card plugged in), the kernel crashed. I worked around this by chmoding the pcmcia start script to 444. Later, I found out that kernel 2.4.18 (which ships with RH80) needs to be patched to get PCMCIA to work on GRZ610. I managed to get the card working with kernel 2.4.20. :) I've made 2.4.20, my default kernel.
• Grub Entry for New Kernel - After I compiled 2.4.20, I had some trouble with the grub.conf entries. Got it to work only after I removed "root=LABEL=/" and added rootnoverify (hd0,4) options for kernel 2.4.20. Please note - there is no space between the "," and 4 in the rootnoverify option.
• Sound - I'm still having trouble with sound. Yes, I've tried ALSA and also kernel 2.4.20, but to no avail :(. Will update this space after I figure it out.

Last updated 03/14/2003