Ok here we go

I am trying to hook my qosmio laptop into my vizio tv. I am using a VGA cable and I run mandriva linux 2009.1.

Unfortunately I have no luck from here. I rebooted my computer and for the first time it offered to run drakroam, but when I accepted, nothing happened. Please help i'm very confused.

To provide you with a proper answer we need more details. For example: What brand video card is in the laptop?

With a NVIDIA card in it, install nvidia-settings via your package manager and run it as root / sudoer to select in the options how you're going to connect the tv to the computer.

If you have a ATI card, install Catalyst instead.

If your package manager doesn't provide the tools, try download it at the official website of NVIDIA or AMD.

As far as I know Intel hasn't any tools for Linux to prepare dual head configurations.

What TV? What laptop? What Distro?

VGA might only output 640x480 (standard definition). Even though your card might support many higher resolutions. I have a TV/LCD that supposedly supports 1024x768, but over composite you can't do better than 640x480 (but it tries). For older LCDs you might be limited to 60Hz refresh rates (ONLY) and all that jazz.

Ok The true trick with a QOSMIO laptop is to wait for the "grub" Screen, stop the timer by hitting an arrow key. use the function key and the F5 button (the one with the two screens)

Actually .. the software mentions that others offered should work too. ie. in windows you would bring up the display properties ... and there would be options to extend your desktop, enable this output device, etc..

often, you can have two *different* resolutions on the two video outputs, one is the native for your laptop display, one that will work better with a large screen. Suppose the vizio is 720p ... your screen rez then would be best somewhere in the 1024x768 or 1200x700 etc.. my laptop does its 16" display at 1366x768 but I can do the 2nd port at upto 1600x1200 ... but without some way to activate the two different modes, I would be stuck with just what ever my laptop normally puts out as the display for my el-cheapo 720p tv, which would mean it would adapt the 1366x768 rather than have a native resolution. (contrast is more visible when you have differences like your laptop does 1366x768 and your tv does 1920x1080 .. that case it would probably expand the smaller resolution and you'd end up with a pixelation blow-up where you'd see stair-step jaggies)