Sony supports sucks caterpilar snot. DO NOT BUY SONY, YOU WILL REGRET IT.

A friendly web site hosts the FreeBSD Laptop Pages. dirkx@webweaving.org also has a useful page on the Vaio and FreeBSD.

I used to run a Sony Vaio 505TX with FreeBSD 4.2-STABLE. Below are the hints I have so far.

Here is the kernel configuration file, and the resulting dmesg. The system was built with this /etc/make.conf. As I use exim and bind9, these are not built with the system build.

Some of the stuff in my /etc/rc.conf may be interesting, especially things like the pccardc interrupt. And for the Orinoco card, I have a hack in /etc/pccard.conf and this invokes /etc/pccard_wi.

XFree86-4.0.[12] would crash when I used touch-pad tapping for <button-1>. So I still use XFree 3.3.6 with the this /etc/XF86Config. Being a fossil, I still use tvtwm as my window manager, using this ~/.xinitrc.

For the in-house wireless, I use an Apple Airport ($300) and configure it with FreeBase on a windoze box. There are also FreeBSD based tools, such as AirPort Base Station / RG-1000 Configurator

I have run a Sony Vaio 505TX with FreeBSD 3.5-RELEASE. Below are the hints I learned.

I ran with a Win98 partition, which I squoze down using Partition Magic. I left the <fn-f12> hibernate-to-disk partition, and it worked quite well with FreeBSD once you have built an apm kernel. What we need is two suspend partitions so one can resume Win98 or FreeBSD on a whim.

I was able to do a normal net ftp install using my 3Com 3C589C PCMCIA ether card as zp0.

Here is the kernel configuration file, and the resulting dmesg.

The /etc/XF86Config. Thanks to Chuck Yerkes <chuck@yerkes.com> for the help.

The $HOME/.xinitrc. I used tvtwm, which is not common.

The $HOME/.Xmodmap. Thanks to David Dawes <dawes@rf900.physics.usyd.edu.au> for the help. And to Bill Fenner <fenner@research.att.com> for pointing out /usr/ports/x11/xkeycaps.

I have yet to figure out

• how to get the modem speaker to work.
• why xsetroot -solid black (or anything else) is a noop. i have the same problem on a tower running 4.0-CURRENT. i think the problem is specific to tvtwm.

Any and all hints would be appreciated. Email them to me, Randy Bush <randy@psg.com>.

I have the 3.4-RELEASE+PAO support (PCMCIA/PCCARD) working, see the home of PAO development.

Here are the kernel configuration and the dmesg. I had to force the interrupt for the 3C589C in /etc/pccard.conf, i.e.

# 3Com Etherlink III 3C589, 3C589B, 3C589C, 3C589D
	card "3Com Corporation" "3C589"
        config  default "ep0" 10
        insert  logger -p 3Com Etherlink III inserted
        insert  /etc/pccard_ether $device
        remove  logger -p 3Com Etherlink III removed
        remove  /etc/pccard_ether_remove $device

FYI, here is how I got a 900MHz ISA WaveLAN going under FreeBSD 4.0-CURRENT on an Asus-based tower.

• install the card.
• make a bootable floppy with the instconf.exe from the floppy that comes with the wavelan.
• boot it and run instconf.
  • set 0x300
  • set the interrupt (i use 7, as i never use parallel)
  • be sure to disable parallel in cmos
• add the following line to your kernel config:

    device wl0 at isa? port 0x300 net irq ?

• you may also want to add the following to your kernel config:

    options WLCACHE # enables the signal-strength cache
    options WLDEBUG # enables verbose debugging output

• config, make depend, make, and install the new kernel.
• boot the new kernel.
• ifconfig wl0 inet 666.42.77.5 netmask 255.255.255.0 up.
• wlconfig wl0 nwid 0xAAAA (or whatever).
• wlconfig wl0 currnwid 0xAAAA (or whatever) note man page says curnwid, but look at the source.