Downgrading Sony Vaio SZ650N/PCG-6S2L Vista to XP Then Dual Boot Ubuntu 8.04

Whew, that's a long title. But, but, but...the process is a LOT easier than it sounds. So many of you have read about how hard it was to downgrade Vista to XP on Toshiba A205-S5800, and saw how hard it was to dual boot XP Pro and Ubuntu Studio 7.04. However, thanks to the support from Sony and the awesome new version of Ubuntu 8.04, both processes have gotten a whole lot easier. You will invariably lose some features that only Vista provides, but the essential functions will all be taken care of, and going from your lethargic Vista to a versatile XP/Linux dual-boot is a snap. Here're the steps and my recommendations.

Skip to Dual Boot Ubuntu Linux 8.04

Step 1. Get a snap shot of your devices
This is just in case not all the devices are recognized after install, and you have to go search for the drivers. It's much more helpful to have the exact device names while searching. Here're the snapshots of my new laptop's devices in Vista before I hosed it.

Devices 1
Devices 2
Devices 3

Step 2. Install XP
During partition creation. I recommend partitioning out 40 GB's for OS installation (including Ubuntu), and the rest as another partition for shared used with Ubuntu. Later we will be able to allocate half for XP(20GB) and half(20GB) for Ubuntu. You can format both partitions in NTFS as both XP and Ubuntu will recognize it.

step 3. Get the drivers
The good thing about downgrading a Sony Vaio SZ650N is that Sony totally supports it, and have all the XP drivers up on their website: Driver Download Page.

Remember to choose "Microsoft Windows XP" from the drop down menu. Then go through them one by one till all your devices are taken care of. Here're are some bumps I had doing the install:

• For the graphics cards:
  1. First you have to switch the little graphic switch just beside the wireless switch to "stamina"
  2. Make sure the little green light is "on" on the side of the switch, if not restart windows.
  3. Install the Intel Graphics driver, then set the switch to "speed", restart windows, then install the NVIDIA Display drivers.
• All the devices work fine except the fingerprint scanner. The drivers on Sony's page didn't work for me.
• The hibernate function didn't work right when I closed the screen. Fixed. Just need to set the "Power Scheme" to Laptop/portable in Control Panel ->Power Options.
• Here's the final device driver screenshot: screenshot

So that "unknown" device is probably the fingerprint scanner. Other than that, the system works perfectly. Now on to dual booting Linux.

Dual Booting Ubuntu Linux 8.04
Step 1. Get the latest distro here, and burn on to CD.
Step 2. Put in the CD and boot from CD-Rom. Follow the instructions and you are all good to go. Here's a pretty good tutorial

That's it! Ubuntu has made it much easier to dual boot with XP this time. You can even try the OS straight from the CD first before installing to check it out. If you are reinstalling Windows already, dual booting Ubuntu is a great easy way to check it out and play with first without sacrificing a laptop just for it.

For those creative people out there, I recommend trying Ubuntu Studio. It is tweaked and packaged with loads of nice free open source software to play with. Everything from music to image and video editing. Though it's a little weak on the video editing area, the image and music packages aren't that bad.

Good Luck, have fun, ac on. =)