When the TR came out the only reason i didnt buy it was the lack of BT, small HDD, and ugly color (and i kinda chuckled at the camera… sacrilegious on these forums, i know, but i just have no need for it.)

Now that the T is out (sadly with the same wimpy HDD) im about ready to pick it up, im just a little uncertain about the OS issues.

The first thing i do with any laptop i buy is format it and split it in three 1)BSD 2) Slackware 3) XP Pro.  I know from previous experiences with sony that their hardware is… less than friendly when it comes to drivers, and i remember hearing issues with upgrading an XP home TR to Pro. The problem is i can only get a discount on a T series with XP home thanks to CompUSA.  If i split up the (oh so small) hdd, then install my own XP Pro, will i experience hell installing all of Sonys little extra drivers for buttons/wifi/bt/etc?

I already know the TR has little linux support, and ive yet to find any experience with a good distro on the TR, but ive had good success with other incompatible units and figure the reward is worth the effort.

One last question: does anyone know how accessible the ram bay is on the T? Im planning to get the 512 upgrade but i dont know if i can limp along without it for a while and do it myself later or if its better to just let sony do it now.

thanks in advance

Well, since the T has less hardware than the TR it should actually be easier to get more of the things working. Also, the essential supporting chipset has remained the same since the introduction of the TR so driver support should be better by now. The T and TR use a 1280x768 resolution screen so in some cases you may need to buy an X server that supports it as most don’t out of the box.

My gut feeling is that the extra buttons on the T will not work “easily” with the other non-Windows OSes. Most laptops will have this same sort of issue and it will be up to an enterprising individual to figure out how to enable them and write custom drivers/apps.

Intel has started supporting Linux more and should have PRO/Wireless drivers available for their 802.11b/g chipsets.

Not sure about the RAM yet…hopefully a fellow T owner here can speak up on this.

the 1280x768 issue..
has been solved here
http://www.siliconpopculture.com/sonytr/viewtopic.php?t=1363&highlight=1024

And the drivers for the network card.
http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/

right now im not too worried about getting the extras working in *nix, il have plenty of time to work that out my self later on (as i did with my 9lb behemoth of an Inspiron 8200’s media buttons.)

my only real concern right now is formatting an xp home unit to pro and getting the extra bells and whistles running in Pro. i cant write my own driver packages for windows, only *nix.

if i remember correctly the TR had a hidden slice for sony’s OS backup, where there any issues repartitioning that?

Nice to see the screen is already worked out. display drivers are the bane of my existence… well, that and 110v

I don’t know if this helps…But on the TR there was 2 partitions installed from the factory.

Now there is none besides the hidden for the OS….

The total available is 32 gigs…I guess sony needed over 7 gigs just to get this up and running…

So yes it is a whimppy hdd…I can’t wait for a bigger 1.8 inch….