Hello. I am fairly new to linux, and have just installed Slackware on my laptop. I have figured out a number of problems that I had, but there is one lingering problem that I have. When I start up Slack, the intitial screen is quite small compared to the size of my sceen. Then I run startx and the GUI screen is slightly larger, though still not full screen on my laptop. I have run xf86config (which shouldn't be the entire problem as the problem exists before I begin the GUI), and cannot get it to accept a 1600x1200 screen. The best I can do is 1280x1024. If I could at least get the GUI to run in full screen, that would be great, but I would also like the initial prompt to show up in full screen.

I have this same problem when I run knoppix, and also the startup screen in Windows does the same thing (that is, does not take up the full screen). So maybe this is a deeper problem. Then again, when I open the BIOS config program, that shows up full screen. I have tried running options into the kernal from the boot disk (like vga=some number that I got from the table that I get when I push F1), but that just gave me an error. I try to put vga=799 and I get "Could not find kernal image: vga=799.

Here are some of my system specs. I have a Dell Inspiron 8100 with a UXGA screen and a GeForce2 GO video card. The screen has a resolution of 1600x1200 and has a 60Hz refresh rate. The video card has 32Mb of memory. Upon calling Dell, they told me that the hsync is 31-60 kHz and the vsync is 60-75 kHz. I have tried running xf86config with the recommended vertical and horizontal sync ranges and with my actual ranges, plus with my actual ranges minus some small number. When I I put in all of my actual specs, I cannot startx. Part of the problem may be that I choose the NVIDIA GeForce (w/ a GeForce chipset) from the list of video card definitions (#349) when my actual card may differ slightly, due to it being a mobile version.

Any help or insight would be very much appreciated. I think I will try to recompile my kernal, and hope that that helps matters. (Actually, I would want to do that anyway for performance reasons.) Help me! Thanks!

k first thing i know with an old P|| 366 laptop i have you can set the fullscreen in the bios, like for the bootup screens etc...but for the actual gui that bios setting will not affect...so if your not getting fullscreen in X i suggest you download nvidias display drivers and install them ... follow the readme instructions on how to edit your config file to use the nvidia driver, and how to install the drivers...

please post your lilo.conf and your XF86Config

for lilo.conf post from 2 lines above to 2 lines below your vga option

for XF86Config post the Graphics device section and the Screen sections

and have you installed nvidia's drivers?

Yeah, it sounds like a driver issue. Get the official drivers from nvidia.com