Sony Vaio Pro SVP-1x21 - ArchWiki

Jump to content
From ArchWiki

This article or section does not follow the Laptop page guidelines.

Reason: Duplicates a lot of already existing content, does not follow the guidelines (Discuss in Talk:Sony Vaio Pro SVP-1x21)

This article or section is out of date.

Reason: This page is ancient. On 2023-06-30, this page will be archived, since the validity of its content for an up to date Arch Linux installation can not be verified. (Discuss in Talk:Sony Vaio Pro SVP-1x21)

This document will guide you through the process of installing Arch Linux on the 2013 Sony Vaio Pro.

## Pre-installation

### BIOS Configuration

Get into the BIOS by pushing the assist button when the system is shut off and then hitting Start BIOS Setup. Do not try to boot from your usb key using recovery mode, instead change the boot order in the BIOS. Make the following changes:

    Intel(R) AT Support System	[Disabled]
    Secure Boot			[Disabled]
    External Device Boot		[Enabled]
    Select 1st Boot Priority	[External Device]

If you want to use the legacy boot (non-EFI), change:

    Boot Mode			[Legacy]

### Install media

- When installing via UEFI from USB create an UEFI bootable USB from ISO
- When booting from USB you might need to append `libata.force=noncq` to the kernel parameters to avoid problems with the SSD. You may even need to make this a persistent kernel parameter when booting from the SSD after installation.
- Some users were not able to boot when using the rear USB port labelled with a lightning bolt. so use the other one in that case.

## Installation

### Dual-boot

Windows fast boot mode overwrites your EFI variables. To keep your bootloader in working order, fast boot needs to be disabled. See Dual boot with Windows#Windows settings.

The laptop firmware seems to have a preference to boot Windows even when other bootmanagers are present.

A solution is to move your bootloader to a recognized location such as `/EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi` [1]

It is important to add the EFI entry with the label "Windows Boot Manager" and `/EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi` as path, else Sony firmware does not load it.

Add the EFI entry for your bootmanager with:

    # efibootmgr -c -g -d /dev/sda -p 1 -w -L "Windows Boot Manager" -l '\EFI\Boot\Bootx64.efi'

Verify that your bootloader is in the first position of the boot order with:

    $ efibootmgr -v

Reboot and see if your bootloader is loaded. If it does not work you can try to delete the windows boot entries with the `-B -b 000X` flags where X is the number of the windows efi entry.

If you cannot boot anymore to windows with this error message:

    The boot configuration data for your PC is missing or contains errors.
    File :\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BCD
    Error code: 0xc000000f

then follow these repair steps: https://woshub.com/how-to-repair-uefi-bootloader-in-windows-8/

## Post-installation

For a faster boot, do not forget to undo these BIOS settings:

    External Device Boot		[Disabled]
    Select 1st Boot Priority	[Internal Drive]

## Hardware support

### Sound

As the Installation guide suggests, install alsa-utils and follow this guide to get started. Works out of the box, although main sound card may have index 1, making it non-default (index 0 is taken by Intel HDMI). To fix this, edit /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf (near line 68):

    /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf

    defaults.ctl.card 1
    defaults.pcm.card 1

### Touch screen

Tapping works out of the box. Multitouch gestures work after installing the driver Multitouch displays#eGalax and using touchegg Multitouch displays#Gestures.

Note: touchegg is no longer required in Gnome 3.14 for multitouch gestures.

### Keyboard backlight

Works out of the box. Enables in low amblient light and a key press, turns off after about 20s. Can be customized by modifying `kbd_backlight` and `kbd_backlight_timeout` found in:

    /sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/

A simple shell script for toggling the backlight, bind to a keyboard shortcut for easy use:

    #!/bin/sh
    path="/sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/kbd_backlight"
    if [ $(<$path) -eq 1 ]
    then
    	newval=0
    else
    	newval=1
    fi
    echo "$newval" > $path

Make sure that you can write to this file without root privileges:

    # chmod +w /sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/kbd_backlight

### Monitor backlight control

Works out of the box with xorg-xbacklight. By default the backlight is only adjusted by 1% per button press. This can easily be fixed by binding those keys to a xorg-xbacklight command. Desktop environments like Xfce do take larger steps by default.

With KDE 1% adjustment can be fixed by the kernel parameter `video.brightness_switch_enabled=0`. This will disable kernel driver 1% adjustment, then KDE PowerDevil correctly adjust brightness by 10% and shows gauge window. There is no need to bind keys.

### Trackpad

Works great with the xf86-input-synaptics driver. A good base config can be found here.

#### Toggle TouchPad via Fn+F1

The hotkey that toggles the TouchPad can be configured using acpid. Create the following two files to do so:

    /etc/acpi/events/toggle-touchpad

    event=button.fnf1 FNF1
    action=/etc/acpi/actions/toggle-touchpad.sh "%e"

Note: This file must be marked as executable.

    /etc/acpi/actions/toggle-touchpad.sh

    #! /bin/sh
    PATH="/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin"

    # Modern method, for Linux 3.11 or later.
    sys_enable_file=/sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/touchpad
    if [ -r "$sys_enable_file" ]; then
      read -r is_currently_enabled < "$sys_enable_file"
      echo > "$sys_enable_file" $((1 - $is_currently_enabled))
    else

    # Older method: have the X11 driver do it
      export DISPLAY=:0
      USER=`who | grep ':0' | grep -o '^\w*' | head -n1`

      if [ "$(su "$USER" -c "synclient -l" | grep TouchpadOff | awk '{print $3}')" == "0" ]; then
          su "$USER" -c "synclient TouchpadOff=1"
      else
          su "$USER" -c "synclient TouchpadOff=0"
      fi
    fi

Note: Restart `acpid.service` after adding the files.

### Fan control

Works well out of the box. It stays quiet during normal load. Change profile by editing `thermal_control` found in `/sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/`. Available profiles can be found in `thermal_profiles` in the same directory.

### Charging

Set the maximum charge to 50/80/100% by modifying `battery_care_limiter` found in `/sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/`.

In order for changes to take effect, it may be necessary to execute:

    # echo 0 > /sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop/battery_care_limiter

### USB ports

Some users are having issues with the usb port labeled with a lightning bolt not working for anything but charging. This is a known issue for many Sony laptops.

Category:

- Sony

Hidden categories:

- Pages or sections flagged with Template:Laptop style
- Pages or sections flagged with Template:Out of date