Installed VL 6 Std RC1 on my new Sylvania g netbook from CD using a USB LiteON DVD burner. It mostly works but there are a lot of issues that need fixing if VL6 is going to work on this netbook and probably a lot of others in an acceptable way:
1. GUI Install> I had the issue where the installer didn't recognize the media. It affects USB drives as well.
2. Text Install: Network> No option to setup the network was offered. I got a DHCP connection at first boot anyway on the ethernet port but I had to set the hostname in VASM.
3. Text Install: X> vxconf seemed to work but let's just say it doesn't. It gave me a default VESA configuration and an ugly and squashed looking 640x480 resolution. Netbooks almost all run at either 1024x600 (8.9" screens) or 800x480 (7" screens) and vxconf seems to be absolutely ignorant of these resolutions.
4. Text Install: Console> Netbook resolutions also can't be chosen for the framebuffer console. 640x480 works for boot but if you startx manually and then leave X you get an unreadable screen. I may try passing vga=808 in lilo and see if that works.
5. I took the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file from my gOS 3.0 install (the updated OS for this netbook from the Sylvania website) and changed the driver from via to openchrome. That gave me a good looking 800x480 with working 3D acceleration. Unfortunately I get all kind of refresh weirdness and blank spaces on the screen and in the panel at times. The only workable solution is the new open source Chrome driver from Via. That works 100% correctly in gOS once I installed it so it should work if compiled for VL. The driver can be found at
http://linux.via.com.tw/support/downloadFiles.action. Making this work is top priority for me. Click on Ubuntu 8.10 for the OS to get the source for the 2.6.27.x kernel.
6. Webcam doesn't work out of the box. (No app, maybe no driver.) Ill try and play with this over the next couple of days. It works in other distros so it should work in VL.
7. Wireless (realtek) not working out of the box. The installer knew it was there and correctly identified the chipset. I'll play with this tomorrow. This particular chipset has multiple drivers available, one good, most terrible. I need to see what VL has and possibly add a better driver.
8. CPU frequency scaling: By default the 1200MHz CPU ends up scaled to 600MHz. You can see that in the text part of the boot right before X comes up. vcpufreq seems to allow me to set it to whatever I want. I know powernowd works properly with this laptop but I don't know if vcpufreq does or doesn't. I need to figure out how I check the actual clock speed at any given time. If anyone knows this off the top of their head and can save me a little research I'd appreciate it.
Specs for this machine:
1.2GHz Via C7-M ULV processor (128MB cache)
1GB RAM (533MHz DDRR)
7" WVGA TFT display, 800x480 resolution
Via UniChrome Pro IGP CX-700 chipset
Realtek RTL8187 wireless chipset
I *think* with a little work VL6 will be great for this Netbook. gOS, the preinstalled OS, isn't without considerable work. Sylvania gets a 5 out of 5 on hardware -- best value for the price -- but a 1 out of 5 for software. I've got gOS and/or Ubuntu tweaked to the point that the netbook hums along and is a pleasure to use. Now I need to get VL to the same place
Regards,
Cait
