Its been a week since Ubuntu natty got officially released. I was running natty since when it was alpha. Since i had issues like the touch-pad freezes, and also since i wanted try the gnome-shell and screwed the install, i decided to do a fresh install.
These are the steps i went through to get a beautiful natty 32bit running on my sony vaio CS17G.
1. Installation: Download Ubuntu natty free from the Ubuntu site, here.
Burn the ISO file with a ISO burning software to a CD.
Boot with the CD into a live session, to test it, for me i was booted to a Ubuntu classic desktop, without unity. everything worked fine.
Go ahead and press on install Ubuntu, If you have partitioned hard disk with gparted, you may run into the issue of installation getting stuck at copying files stage, for ever.
So while installing to partitions done with gparted, selecting formatting option, overcomes this problem and installation proceeds without a hitch.
2. Reboot: After the successful installation, you will be prompted to reboot. I landed in trouble again when natty refused to boot and it stops permanently with a black screen and a cursor on the top left corner. I had to boot with kernel options noacpi nolapic. This resulted in a successful boot into a natty ubuntu classic desktop with a message that unity is not possible because of driver issues.
The fresh install without the nvidia proprietary drivers results only in Ubuntu classic Desktop without unity. But the Fn keys work very well, both for volume and brightness, and the AV Mode key brings up Banshee media player.
3. Nvidia: If you want unity desktop you have to install nvidia drivers. Go to additional drivers option, which will search for the available nvidia drivers, install nvidia current form the available drivers, reboot.
4. Unity: I was rebooted to a beautiful natty desktop with unity running. But i lost the Fn key for brightness after installing the nvidia drivers. Volume keys worked fine. Av key stopped working. To make brightness keys work again, i had to install nvclock. Look here for the instructions on how to make this work.
5. Updates: Install all the available updates. Also install some of the essentials, like ubuntu-restricted-extras from the ubuntu software center. Also install most useful apps like vlc, conky, chromium, gimp, cheese etc. Look here.
6. Conky: To get a beautiful conky, shown in the screenshot above, look here for instructions.
7. Suspend: Suspend works well, haven't tested hibernate yet. But the problem is that when you wake from suspend you will loose the keyboard. For this i had to use atkbd.reset option to the kernel while booting. This mitigates the problem of loosing your keyboard after suspend.
So my kernel options while booting are i8042.nopnp noacpi nolapic atkbd.reset.
I found that these options make my vaio cs work reasonably well.
8. Kernel: Without noacpi nolapic kernel options it will not boot many a times, though it boots without these options, randomly one in 5 to 6 tries.
i8042 option seems to help with the touchpad craziness. It seems have stopped the freezes and make touchpad more usable.
atkbd.reset is required for the no keyboard after suspend issues.
You might not have the touchpad at the login screen with atkbd.reset option, use keyboad to login. On reaching the desktop press alt+F2, select terminal, and from the terminal do
sudo modprobe psmouse.
Randomly touchpad might act weird especially after waking up from suspend, for that do
sudo rmmod psmouse
sudo modprobe psmouse
9. Camera: Webcam works only with the cheese webcam booth.
10. So now you have a beautiful, stable, working Ubuntu natty running on your Sony Vaio CS laptop.
cheers!!
These are the steps i went through to get a beautiful natty 32bit running on my sony vaio CS17G.
1. Installation: Download Ubuntu natty free from the Ubuntu site, here.
Burn the ISO file with a ISO burning software to a CD.
Boot with the CD into a live session, to test it, for me i was booted to a Ubuntu classic desktop, without unity. everything worked fine.
Go ahead and press on install Ubuntu, If you have partitioned hard disk with gparted, you may run into the issue of installation getting stuck at copying files stage, for ever.
So while installing to partitions done with gparted, selecting formatting option, overcomes this problem and installation proceeds without a hitch.
2. Reboot: After the successful installation, you will be prompted to reboot. I landed in trouble again when natty refused to boot and it stops permanently with a black screen and a cursor on the top left corner. I had to boot with kernel options noacpi nolapic. This resulted in a successful boot into a natty ubuntu classic desktop with a message that unity is not possible because of driver issues.
The fresh install without the nvidia proprietary drivers results only in Ubuntu classic Desktop without unity. But the Fn keys work very well, both for volume and brightness, and the AV Mode key brings up Banshee media player.
3. Nvidia: If you want unity desktop you have to install nvidia drivers. Go to additional drivers option, which will search for the available nvidia drivers, install nvidia current form the available drivers, reboot.
4. Unity: I was rebooted to a beautiful natty desktop with unity running. But i lost the Fn key for brightness after installing the nvidia drivers. Volume keys worked fine. Av key stopped working. To make brightness keys work again, i had to install nvclock. Look here for the instructions on how to make this work.
5. Updates: Install all the available updates. Also install some of the essentials, like ubuntu-restricted-extras from the ubuntu software center. Also install most useful apps like vlc, conky, chromium, gimp, cheese etc. Look here.
6. Conky: To get a beautiful conky, shown in the screenshot above, look here for instructions.
7. Suspend: Suspend works well, haven't tested hibernate yet. But the problem is that when you wake from suspend you will loose the keyboard. For this i had to use atkbd.reset option to the kernel while booting. This mitigates the problem of loosing your keyboard after suspend.
So my kernel options while booting are i8042.nopnp noacpi nolapic atkbd.reset.
I found that these options make my vaio cs work reasonably well.
8. Kernel: Without noacpi nolapic kernel options it will not boot many a times, though it boots without these options, randomly one in 5 to 6 tries.
i8042 option seems to help with the touchpad craziness. It seems have stopped the freezes and make touchpad more usable.
atkbd.reset is required for the no keyboard after suspend issues.
You might not have the touchpad at the login screen with atkbd.reset option, use keyboad to login. On reaching the desktop press alt+F2, select terminal, and from the terminal do
sudo modprobe psmouse.
Randomly touchpad might act weird especially after waking up from suspend, for that do
sudo rmmod psmouse
sudo modprobe psmouse
9. Camera: Webcam works only with the cheese webcam booth.
10. So now you have a beautiful, stable, working Ubuntu natty running on your Sony Vaio CS laptop.
cheers!!
