Revitalizing a Sony VAIO with Xubuntu 14.04 (Part 2)

Back in June of this year, I rescued a 2008 Sony VAIO VGN-N31S/W from a fate worse than being recycled, a life with Windows Vista. It had a dodgy power cable,  dead battery and a missing letter 'O' on the keyboard. I have bought a new PSU, upgraded the RAM from 1GB to 3GB and have just replaced the missing key.

When I first got the VAIO, I replaced the broken Windows Vista installation with Xubuntu 14.04 32bit, but I now wish I had installed the 64bit version. I wanted to reinstall but could not get it to boot from USB or DVD, which is odd because I managed it before. And I check every time that the boot settings are correct in the BIOS. I would also like to replace the dead battery but I am wary about spending more money it. I have recently switched from the Xubuntu desktop to Cinnamon desktop using the PPA and the how-to detailed in this article and it runs very well on the VAIO with it's 3GB RAM.

Having used the VAIO for about 2 months now I now know it's strengths and weaknesses and faults. Although it weighs 6.6lbs, it does not feel heavy when sat on my lap, but it does feel back-breaking when carrying it in my rucksack! I am not usually a fan of glossy screens but I love the VAIO's beautiful 15.4" screen that gives a 1280 x 800 (16:10) resolution. My family always remark how good it looks when I am showing them photos on it. I can also store plenty of photos on the 320GB hard drive, which is handy when away from the Internet. It also suspends and resumes perfectly and is very quiet in use, it's cooling fans can barely be heard. It's also the only laptop I have with an Express card slot.

On the downside, the keyboard is not as comfortable as most of my other laptops. I don't know whether this is because of age or dirt or it was built that way. I often find i get more typos than I do with my other laptops. The trackpad buttons aren't very responsive either, you have to hit them in just the right place for response. the trackpad itself is just fine though. It also would be nice if Sony had put Gigabit onboard rather than just 10/100 Ethernet.

Overall it does feel more of a consumer grade laptop than a corporate one, but I am fairly happy with the Sony VAIO, especially considering it has not cost me much to obtain and repair so for now I shall keep it running until it dies. I find it very useful for showing photos and videos to my folks, mainly because of that fantastic screen. I used to use my Samsung N145 netbook for this but the screen is tiny and not very bright, so despite it's weight, the power and screen of the VAIO makes it better suited to the job.

 

Revitalizing a Sony VAIO with Xubuntu 14.04.

Yesterday I rescued a Sony VAIO VGN-N31S/W from a life of Windows Vista and from being recycled as e-waste. It has a dodgy PSU cable (held together with green/yellow electrical tape) and one missing key-top on the letter O. The previous owner has put a bit of tape over it, so it still kind of works, though a little awkward to press. I'm hoping I might be able to pick up a cheap replacement key or replacement keyboard.

The battery is totally dead, and I had to set up the time/date and other settings in the BIOS. It's got a 1.66ghz Core 2 Duo CPU, Intel 950 onboard graphics (up to 256MB shared memory), a 320GB Seagate hard drive and a DVD writer. This machine still has it's original 1GB of RAM - 2x 512MB DDR2 sticks. It came to me in it's original box and has all it's manuals too. I even found the original receipt tucked inside the box, this laptop cost £599.99 in 2007, when it was new!

On boot up I discovered it had a messed up Windows Vista Premium install, so that had to go! I decided to install Xubuntu 14.04 on it, since it would run better on it's current 1GB RAM than Mint Cinnamon, which is my main distro of choice. At first I couldn't work out why it would not boot from my USB stick, despite already setting it to boot to USB in Boot Settings. Then I discovered there's another setting called "External Device Boot" that needs to be enabled, and that's in another section of the BIOS. Once the live disk had booted, the improved installer had Xubuntu installed in around 10-15 minutes. Everything went very smoothly and as far as I can tell right now, all the hardware works out-the-box. Wi-fi works and it suspends and resumes perfectly, which is not too surprising I suppose since this Intel chipset is well supported in Linux.

I have installed Cairo Dock, and my usual selection of favourite apps (gtkvncviewer, Audex, easyMp3gain-gtk, Filezilla etc) and a nice wallpaper that I have forgotten where I found. I did a Google Image search for "sunset wallpaper" and Large images in Search Tools.

Xubuntu runs really smoothly as usual, even on just 1GB RAM, though I still intend to replace the two 512MB sticks with 2x 1GB to max out the RAM. This is the first Sony VAIO I have ever owned and it feels fairly light compared to my Dell D520 and HP nc6320 laptops and has a bigger hard drive too, though the Dell and HP can both take 4GB RAM. It's also the first laptop I have owned that has an Express Card slot. I'm quite pleased it, once the RAM has been upgraded, keyboard repaired/swapped and the power lead fixed this should be a fairly decent and usable laptop.

Update 10/06/2014: Despite every site I have been to saying that 2GB is the maximum RAM this laptop would take, I have bought a 2GB DDR2 stick of RAM, for £10 which isn't bad at all, along with one of the original 512MB sticks, the VAIO is running just fine, more smoothly than with just 1GB RAM. I have also bought a replacement PSU too, as it's too tricky to try repair the original.