linux wont fit over my whole screen
 

Hi. I have a sony vaio vgn-s260 laptop.. got slackware on it but it wont utilize my whole screen.. my laptop is one of the ones with the wide screen... it has a mbility radeon 9200.. how do i get it to use the whole screen instead of black borders? thanks a lot.

There should be a "screen" section containing "display" subsections for various color depths in your X configuration file, and unless I'm mistaken you can specify a string of resolutions per color depth with the "Modes" field.
example:
Change the resolutions to match your screen.
Hopefully superfluous advise: be sure to back up your existing configuration.

JJ

thanks i would try that.. only if i knew where the x configuration file is.. sorry i am a noob.

Try /etc/X11/xorg.conf

i am pretty sure this will be a dumb question but how do i select it after I edit the xorg.conf file

After you edit the file you need to restart X, I would go into runlevel 3 and try "startx" before making any permanent changes. If you added the modes line at the appropriate place (i.e. at the display subsection with the default color depth) I think it should work. LCD screens usually work great at only one resolution, so I don't think it's necessary to specify more than one.
So for a widescreen the section might look something like this (replace the resolution with your own):
If your default depth is 32, then I think that will work the next time the X server is started.

JJ