Has anyone with a sony 505tx vaio (or other models) gotten the built
in modem to say peep?  I know the modem hardware works because I
configured PPP to use it under win98.  I'm told its a real modem, not a
'winmodem' but I don't know how to test that claim.  Under Netbsd
chat(1)-ing to both "tty" and "dty" just get a time out.  Tip-ing to
them causes tip to wait as if it is working. When one types the first
character tip exits.

As for the other stuff, it seems to work fairly well with
netbsd-current.  The suspend-to-disk and suspend-to-ram (sleep) modes
all seem to work.  Even the ethernet started working once I reserved
IRQ 9 for the useless firewire port.

My procedure was: 

* grab the freebsd DOS tool for repartitioning a live DOS partition.
  Use the win98 defrag prog. to defrag.  Then use the above partition
  prog to cut the partition into two parts.
  
* install using the latest snapshot install disk. (I couldn't figure out
  how to make a current install disk.  Is there a readme?)
  
* compile up a kernel with irq 9 masked off.  Use the above install
  disk to partition the disk, put down bootblocks, newfs the partitions
  install initial "install" binaries, and finally install it an irq-9
  aware kernel via a floppy.

* reboot into new kernel, config the net, and ftp the tarfiles.  
  reboot back to floppy disk kernel.  untar the tarfiles onto the hard
  disk.  I didn't reboot at first and died a horrible death when tar
  untarred tar without having gotten to the dynamic libs yet. ;-)

* Compile up XF86Setup (it isn't compiled by default on netbsd -- dunno
  why).  Patches to NetBSD.cf avail on request.  Run it to configure
  XSVGA.  XF86Config avail on request.

* add /etc/apm/{suspend,sleep,resume} to "ifconfig ep0
  {down,down,up}".  Netbsd again dies a horrible death if the ethernet
  is up when the machine goes to sleep or is suspended.  Perhaps the
  ep0 driver could be made sleep/suspend away???

The machine seems to run fine.  The operator, however, is till having
severe problems with the 90%-size keys and the really goofy trackpad
which seems to be noisy as all hell.

Under netbsd the 505tx seems to get 3hrs on the small battery.  The
big battery is 2x that size, so figure 6hrs.  I've only timed the
small battery so far.  Under win98 the battery drains in half the
time.  Stupid MS seems to have forgotten to put a halt instruction in
their inner idle loop. ;-)

There is still a bit of fluff that I need to remove.  I get some stray
irq-11's which should be my ep0.  Its possible there is other secret
hardware lurking in the box that yanks on irq-11 every once in a
while.

-wolfgang
-- 
       Wolfgang Rupprecht <wolfgang+gnus@dailyplanet.wsrcc.com>
		    http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/
DGPS signals via the Internet  http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/gps/dgps-ip.html