Sony Vaio Pro SVP-1x21

How to setup Gentoo Linux on the Sony Vaio Pro Haswell based ultrabooks.

Preparation
It's recommended you back up your disk so that you can keep the windows recovery partition in-case you ever need it.

Since most live usb sticks do not support the WiFi card (Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless N 7260) of these laptops, you will likely be without Internet while setting up the laptop until you can compile a kernel which contains the support. The easiest way to bootstrap the laptop into a WiFi capable kernel is to download the following (or newer) packages from a Gentoo Mirror.


 * autogen-5.15.tar.xz
 * bc-1.06.95.tar.bz2
 * busybox-1.20.2.tar.bz2
 * cpio-2.11.tar.bz2
 * dmraid-1.0.0.rc16-3.tar.bz2
 * efibootmgr-0.5.4.tar.gz
 * fuse-2.8.6.tar.gz
 * gcc-4.4.3-specs-0.2.0.tar.bz2
 * gcc-4.7.3-patches-1.2.tar.bz2
 * gcc-4.7.3-piepatches-v0.5.5.tar.bz2
 * gcc-4.7.3.tar.bz2
 * gcc-4.7.3-uclibc-patches-1.0.tar.bz2
 * genkernel-3.4.45.1.tar.bz2
 * genpatches-3.11-3.base.tar.xz
 * genpatches-3.11-3.extras.tar.xz
 * gnupg-1.4.11.tar.bz2
 * grub-2.00.tar.xz
 * guile-1.8.8.tar.gz
 * hwids-20130329.tar.gz
 * libnl-1.1.4.tar.gz
 * linux-3.11.tar.xz
 * LVM2.2.02.88.tgz
 * mdadm-3.1.5.tar.bz2
 * open-iscsi-2.0-872.tar.gz
 * pciutils-3.2.0.tar.gz
 * unifont-5.1.20080914.tar.gz
 * unionfs-fuse-0.24.tar.bz2
 * wireless_tools.30.pre9.tar.gz
 * wpa_supplicant-0.7.3.tar.gz

You will also need an appropriate stage3 tarball and the portage-latest tarball.

These are all the packages required to install efibootmgr-0.5.4-r1, gentoo-sources-3.11.0, grub-2.00-r3, wireless-tools-30_pre9, and wpa_supplicant-0.7.3-r5. With all this in hand you should be able to install Gentoo, build the newest kernel with support for the Intel 7260, and all the wireless tools necessary to connect to a wireless access point.

Alternatively you can prepare your own live usb stick that has the necessary support for the Intel 7260, or if you have a phone capable of tethering it's wireless you can take advantage of that.

Sound
Using ALSA alone doesn't produce very good sound. It's recommended that you use PulseAudio with this laptop.