Hi, everyone. I'm new here and I am new to Linux. I partitioned and installed FC5 on my laptop about 3 weeks ago. My laptop is the Alienware m5500 with selectable graphics between an ATI chip which works fine and the integrated intel graphics which cause a problem. I used the ATI to install so no problems there but now I can't use the integrated chipset. I've been frustrating myself playing with the xorg.conf file and nothing seems to work. I haven't quite figured out everything about how to perform some functions in linux, so things like "I determined that the X failure was this bug, which requires applying this patch to Xorg to get the card working. Now that Xorg is modular, it's (thankfully) sufficient to just download the latest xorg-x11-server.src.rpm, make the change, and rpmbuild -ba to have the specfile take care of building you a new RPM." (from Chris Ball's Blog) don't make sense to me yet.

Basically, I just want to get this integrated graphics working so that I can start to play with learning everything else, so any help with this issue or just general guidance to a new and eager-to-learn user is greatly appreciated,

Thanks,
-az

What, precisely, is the chipset? Tell us everything you can find about it. /sbin/lspci -v would be a good start.

"00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM/GMS/910GML Express Processor to DRAM Controller (rev 04)
Subsystem: Uniwill Computer Corp Unknown device 9800
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
Capabilities: [e0] Vendor Specific Information
"
and
"00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM Express PCI Express Root P ort (rev 04) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
Bus: primary=00, secondary=03, subordinate=03, sec-latency=0
I/O behind bridge: 0000b000-0000dfff
Memory behind bridge: ffd00000-ffdfffff
Prefetchable memory behind bridge: bff00000-dfefffff
Capabilities: [88] #0d [0000]
Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [90] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable -
Capabilities: [a0] Express Root Port (Slot+) IRQ 0
Capabilities: [100] Virtual Channel
Capabilities: [140] Unknown (5)
"

I guess that's the i915GM...? which should be covered by the i810 driver supplied with FC5 which is what I've been trying to use over and over. It starts the graphical startup, but the screen only shows partially and in the end it just locks up and I have to use the power button to reset. Thanks for the reply, if you need the full output, let me know, I just can't figure out how to attach it.

Note: When I leave the Device section that holds the graphics card info blank in Xorg, I get a non-graphical startup that leads to the X server error "No Screens Found"...?

I don't think you'll be able to setup xorg.conf to run both graphics chipsets - it'll have to be one or the other. Anyway, I'm posting from Fedora 5 on my Sony Vaio laptop which has the same Intel integrated graphics as you. This is the appropriate line from lspci:

And here's the Device section from my xorg.conf:

I think that's all you'll need to change. The monitor section you've already got should work for either graphics chipset.

Thanks terracotta, I've tried that line and it gives me an interesting result. I don't know how to make an attachment on this forum but I'll post pics up in a minute. This is really frustrating...
Okay, http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y44/azruial/

Yours is listed as "rev 03" wheras mine is "rev 04" would that cause mine to mess up like this??