ubuntu 13.04 clean install problems on Sony Vaio VPCSE - slow startup (long timeout) due to "kvm disabled by BIOS"; slow shutdown due to "speech dispatcher disabled"

installing 13.04 on sony vaio (VPCSE2V9E) has been a terrible experience.


BOOT/SHUTDOWN

* on boot it either hangs a long time or i get a black screen and have to reboot.

* on shutdown it either hangs with the following error message:
acpid: exiting
speech-dispatcher disabled; edit /etc/default/speech-dispatcher

or it takes a long time and i end up having to hold the power key in.

UPDATE 20130604:
to get rid of that speech-dispatcher message i did this:
sudo nano -w /etc/default/speech-dispatcher

and set RUN to yes:
RUN=yes

to get rid of the speech-dispatcher message, disable it:
sudo apt-get install bum

now start BootUp-Manager (sudo bum OR paste "BootUp-Manager" into the Unity Dash search field) and remove the checkmark in the Activate column next to speech dispatcher > Apply > Quit.

(thanks to Nicolas for that one--see his comment on this post)

Note: after deactivating speech-dispatcher, i restarted, logged in, but got just a black screen and a mouse pointer, but couldn't do anything, so i restarted again and then everything was fine.

TESTING: i also disabled acpi in BootUp-Manager to see if this affects the battery problems. (I'm not recommending doing this until I've tested it a little) Before i did this, the laptop was plugged in and the battery indicator in ubuntu said 5 hours to charge until the battery was fully charged. then i disabled this and restarted and it said only 50 minutes left to charge. maybe it helps?

// END UPDATE 20130604


i upgraded to the 3.9 kernel (this user claims it helped with the boot problems) and got the following errors:
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of traverso:
 traverso depends on fftw3.
 traverso depends on libglu1-mesa | libglu1.
 traverso depends on libjack0.100.0-0 (>= 0.102.20).
 traverso depends on libqt4-core (>= 4.2.3).
 traverso depends on libqt4-gui (>= 4.2.3).
 traverso depends on libraptor1 (>= 1.4.11).
 traverso depends on librasqal0 (>= 0.9.13).
 traverso depends on librdf0 (>= 1.0.4).
 traverso depends on libxcursor1 (>> 1.1.2).
 traverso depends on libxinerama1.
 traverso depends on libxrandr2 (>= 2:1.2.0).
 traverso depends on cdrdao.
 traverso depends on sox.

dpkg: error processing traverso (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Setting up dcp9270cdncupswrapper (1.1.1-5) ...
cups stop/waiting
cups start/running, process 30056
Processing triggers for bamfdaemon ...
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf-2.index...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 traverso

to fix the dependency problems:
sudo apt-get -f install


boot and shutdown seem a little more stable after upgrading the kernel.


VIDEO

* i tried enabling the proprietary fglrx video drivers and enabling virtualization in the BIOS (to get into the BIOS at boot you press the F2 key), but forget about that working! unity doesn't work at all with that configuration, there's no unity bar or menus in the windows. so i recommend the default video drivers. FYI, to configure the video drivers go here:

Software > Updates (the bash/cli command for software and updates is update-manager) > Additional Drivers tab

to fix unity after switching back to the default drivers, i ran these commands:
sudo dconf reset -f /org/compiz/
setsid unity

one good thing though is that i'm able to rotate my second screen correctly with the default video drivers, without having to use the proprietary drivers and i haven't noticed my laptop's cooling fan at all (earlier version of ubuntu made my laptop fan run all the time when using the default video drivers)! :)


AUDIO

* audio seems just as buggy as 12.04. i got audio working when i plugged in my headphones yesterday, but today the only output i get is "dummy output", with no sound :(

UPDATE
to fix audio and enable sound do the following:

i had no sound after my install so i had to start alsamixer in a terminal then set Auto-Mute to Disabled

then i restarted pulseaudio and i got sound back:
sudo killall pulseaudio

another crappy thing about 13.04 is that nautilus doesn't have F3 split functionality any more :(

see also: what i configure and install immediately after a new, clean install of ubuntu (updated now for ubuntu 13.04)