Guest omro Posted October 24, 2002 Report Share Posted October 24, 2002 Hi All, Warning: I'm practically a complete Linux newbie! The only Linux machine I've used for any length of time is my Zaurus Palmtop and based on my positive experiences with that, I thought I'd give Linux a try on my laptop one day, especially since Win2k isn't that stable on it. The other day I upgraded an old laptop at work with a new hard drive and thought I'd put the old one in my laptop to give Linux a try. I could try Linux and not worry about my old data as that'd be nice and safe on the original HD. I downloaded Mandrake Linux 9, having heard that it's easy for the linux newbie. My laptop is an Acer 630, not covered by Linux on Laptops unfortunately. The processor is a P4 1.4M. 256mb of Ram. 15GB HD. GeForce 2 Go processor. ALi Soundchip. 15" 1400x1050 TFT Panel. I ran the installer and all worked fine, I progressed through the installation steps and generally took guesses at the questions. Then it came to the Xfree configuration. I picked the newest 4.2.1, assuming it would have the most success. I selected 1400x1050 flat panel, then that resolution and 32bit colour depth. Pressed test and rubbish appeared on the screen. I tried a few other resolutions and colour depths and eventually only 800x600 at 65,000 colours would display correctly (though the mouse cursor disappeared, which I didn't take much note of as I just assumed it was meant to vanish). I thought, ok, that'll be enough to give it a go and I can probably work out how to change the resolution after that. The laptop rebooted and booted into KDE, but the mouse cursor is missing. I can move my finger about on the touchpad and things will hi-light and I can press the mouse keys and things will activate, but it's rather difficult not being able to see the cursor! So my questions for now are: 1) How can I get the mouse cursor back? 2) How can I change the resolution to make full use of my laptop's TFT panel? Thanks, Owen P.S. I guess there will be other questions after this for the patient. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ezroller Posted October 24, 2002 Report Share Posted October 24, 2002 for the resolution issue: open up a terminal and run "DrakConf" (it is case sensitive) you will be prompted for the root password. type in the root password <enter> under hardware, click on the resolution icon. from there you can make your changes. I really don't know what to tell you on the cursor issue though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest omro Posted October 24, 2002 Report Share Posted October 24, 2002 Tried that, tabbing through apps is kinda harder than you'd think! All other resolutions and colour depths display junk during testing :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fab Posted November 5, 2002 Report Share Posted November 5, 2002 You can try to set up a framebuffer device which should get you higher resolution and more colors anyway. For the cursor thing ... try the following (just a try) 1 -login as root in xterm or so 2 - edit /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 (XFree 4) or edit /etc/X11/XF86Config 3 - look up the section "InputDevice" and add the following >> Option "sw_cursor" Good luck Fab Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jglen490 Posted November 5, 2002 Report Share Posted November 5, 2002 Go to http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp and download the Linux driver. Be sure to follow the instructions on the download page, get all the documentation, and look for other threads on installing the Nvidia drivers here and in other fora. You'll be looking at some really pretty screen scenes before long!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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