Hello again all
two questions one of which i'm sure is simple but i'm not as adept at linux as i wish. When i load the live CD version of SimplyMepis everything loads correctly etc. but on my LCD laptop monitor the GUI doesn't fill out my entire screen as in it is in the middle and there is roughly a 2 inch area around the entire screen where it is black.
Two; when i load the live version of berry linux on my LCD laptop screen the graphics for the boot up look fine but when it actually finishes loading the graphics are wierd looking almost as if there are pixelated bars running vertically together throughout the screen you can still read is but just barely ...any solutions ?
thanks again

HI xakeriah , I am afraid I am not a linux guru either but regarding simply mephis problem :-
Have you tried adjusting the screen resolution ? Have you tried adjusting the Vertical and Horizontal aspects of LCD from its controls (physical controls)?
Regarding Berry linux:-
have you tried resizing , increasing or decreasing colour depth of your screen?

Well i feel a bit sheepish about question number two now. my laptop does not have the normal button to change resolution screen size etc. on it. BUTTTT for berry linux i had my monitor set in Simul mode which was causing the lines DUH. The only thing i can figure with my first question is that the live CD (simplymepis) i am using says it is a demo version so that is why it is smaller. which brings me to another question. I love berry linux as it is quick and easy but it does not have alot of programs that come with it ...is there a better live CD distro rather i guess a better question is is there a similar distro to berry that is either live or non live ...i want to convert strictly to linux and have used SimplyMepis 6.0 which i did not like i have Ubuntu and Kubuntu on the way from the free shipit cd and i have tried to boot Knoppix STD but i can't get it to work ..i think i may be a bit too much of a novice to use it. all outside information is appreciated
Thanks again

xakeriah I will answer this by putting my self in your shoes , i have tried Redhat , Mandrake , SUSE , Ubuntu , Heckinix , Arch , Gnoppix , Simply Mephis but now I have settled for PCLINUXOS ...... its live and has an arsenal of programmes with it ... check it out at pclinuxos.com I think its an ideal option for atleast a newbie. If you need any help with it , I might verywell be of quiet some assistance .

Thanks for the input i will check it out for right now i'm trying to figure out Knoppix STD ..seems pretty neat

Wow i really like PCLINUXOS it's pretty neat handy and fast it does seem very newbie oriented which is good. there are a few programs in which i have no idea what they do or how they work and i'm just learning the shell commands which is the biggest challenge for me as it seems everyone else. MC (midnight commander) seems neat though and i really like the intergrated synaptics software download. thanks for the suggestion any others would be appreciated as well.

Although you've changed distros, I think I might try to explain what was going on before (and you may or may not understand). I am no Mepis expert, but I do not think the installer found the correct resolution of your laptop LCD (perhaps widescreen or something not standard?). Therefore, it picked a lower setting. The thing is, an LCD has a native resolution, and there are two ways to display a resolution smaller than the native resolution. The first is to try to enlarge the picture to take up all the screen area (the strength here is that you have a "bigger" viewing area. The weakness is that a square will not look square, and a pixel will not always correspond to a pixel on your screen). The other is to put the picture in the normal, native "resolution" (here I mean resolution as in pixels per unit physical area), but only use the amount of pixels necessary (this may make everything look more crisp, at the expense of being physically "smaller"). In any case, that's what I would guess happened.

I've never used Mepis, but is there any way you can boot it up in framebuffer mode? I've had to do that with knoppix disks in the past on laptops.

I believe you're right because PCLINUXOS also loads with a smaller viewing area the only thing is like i stated there is no button to control the screen size,vertical/horizontal position etc. i may have to do something in the bios like run the monitor in CRT mode ...when i load both distros on my desktop computer they are full screened etc. so maybe that is the issue. i will have to tinker around it's really not a big deal it just makes me squint a little. thanks for the help guys

Sorry, by framebuffer mode, I mean is there any option at the main boot screen to specify any arguments to the boot parameter?

not that i noticed no.

xakeriah congratulations on getting a linux distro that satisfies you , just a tip dont forget to visit their IRC channel ( a link must be somewhere on the desktop) as named as 'PCLINUXOS irc ' or sorta it helped me alot to learn veryfast

Well i would get on the IRC channel if i could connect to the Net using my desktop computer (see my other thread). thanks for the help