OK hi guys, my first post here, hopefully it wont be the last.

I just installed Mandrake 9.2 succesfully(I thought), after several tries and tirbulations, I finaly got it to work with everything except...I have a ATI Radeon 9600 Pro...which means my vid card isn't supported.

So I chose the VESA drivers instead having read somewhere, and seen with my brief experiment with RedHat 9 that they do infact work with my card. And all was well.

I customised the whole thing, rebooted a gazillion times and all was well.

Then I went to sleep content with the satisfaction that I had finally made the switch and that finally everything was working.

When I turned on my computer in the morning it got though the boot process then launched X and went all scrambly(which it always did) but this time it didnt unscramble. I could vaigly see my mouse pointer stretched across the screen.

Needless to say I'm lost. The only thing I can think of that I did different is I shut down the box instead of restarting...

any suggestions would be awesome, I can get to the comand prompt with no difficulty, as far as mandrake is concerned there is no problem...but all is not well!

Your video card definitely is supported. Go to ATI's site and you can download linux drivers; I found the instructions a bit unclear at first but after I read them a couple of times I got it. It basically boils down to: install the rpm (use --force if you get an error) and then run fglrxconfig.

If you don't know how to install a rpm, as root type:

rpm -i --force whatever_the_rpm_file_is_called.rpm

You should run fglrxconfig as root too. It would be helpful if, before you do that, you make sure you know what the vert. and horiz. refresh rate ranges are for your monitor.

There is a little more to do if you want 3d acceleration to work, but one step at a time, eh!

Ok I'll try those drivers again, but it still SHOULD work the next day with the VESA drivers right? I just dont understand why its not working one day fine the next not...I'll get on that later today thanks for the suggestion though!

awesome it works now!! Thanks a bunch, I still havent turned off the box for a night, but the video loaded much cleaner this time. I tried that rpm like 8 other times using fglrxconfig but it never worked, funny how suddenly it works!! Thanks again

Glad to hear it's working. No idea why it worked before and then not the next day; you're right, it should have done.