Sony Vaio VGN-N11S

This is a work-in-progress howto guide to installing Gentoo on a Vaio VGN-N11S/W.

The Sony Vaio VGN-N11S is an Intel centrino notebook with a T2050 Core Duo. It has 1024MB of ram and a 100GB hdd. The graphic is provided by a GMA 950 and the display has a resolution of 1280x800.

The basic installation of gentoo is the same as described in the handbook. I will go into detail for some specialities later.

Basic kernel configuration
Based on gentoo-sources-2.6.24-r2 the following works, but must not be the best solution. For further information about kernel configuration and installing please read the handbook.

Processor
Because it is a dual core processor you have to integrate SMP support. Also the processor type can be set to Pentium M because the Core Duo (not Core2Duo) is based on the Pentium M. See also this guide for more information and CFlags.

SATA
The modules ahci and ata_piix are requiered.

Whether you want to build these options as modules or builtin depends on whether you want to use them for booting, of course.

WLAN
You can use Iwlwifi to get on wifi.

Sony Laptop Extras
This section is quite problematic. I tried to enable the function of the Fn keys with this driver but it fails.

The only thing this is good for, is that it enables the possibility to change the backround illumination. But this works only with command line calls.

If you want to try use these kernel settings:

Power management
To use power management functions activate the ACPI support in the kernel config.

Graphic
This machine uses Intel GMA, for which Intel has written an excellent driver. Please refer to Intel GMA for installation and configuration instructions.

As mentioned above the resolution is 1280x800.

Keep in mind that TV out does not work with this notebook.

Cardreader (build-in)
I tried a lot but at this kernel stage it is not possible to use the MemoryStick reader, maybe a later kernel version will support it. SD cardreader works quite normal.

For installation see SD and MMC card readers (tifm section).