Hello to all who will read this to find answers and to those who will try to answer this and help me and lot of other people.

I am runnig RedHat Enterprise Linux WS release 3 on a Compaq Presario 3410US Notebook (AMD Athlon XP 2800+, 512 DDR RAM, 15.4" WXGA+ screen, nVidia Geforce 4 420 Go 32 MB graphics card, 60 GB HDD).

The kernel is 2.4.21-27.0.2.EL on an i686.

I was able to successfully install the nVidia drivers. Well almost successfully. My notebook has a widescreen. So now my screen has 10% black screen on bottom and about 25% black screen on the right. This is at 1280 x 1024. I have tried different resolutions. All I really need is 1280x800 coz thats what it uses on Windows XP and works just fine on there.

How can i get Linux to display on my whole screen? I am almost giving up on trying. I am a new user.

This is what my XF86Config file looks like:

# XFree86 4 configuration created by redhat-config-xfree86

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "DevInputMice" "AlwaysCore"
EndSection

Section "Files"

# RgbPath is the location of the RGB database. Note, this is the name of the
# file minus the extension (like ".txt" or ".db"). There is normally
# no need to change the default.
# Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (they are concatenated together)
# By default, Red Hat 6.0 and later now use a font server independent of
# the X server to render fonts.
RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
# FontPath "unix/:7100"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "fbdevhw"
Load "glx"
Load "record"
Load "freetype"
Load "type1"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# Specify which keyboard LEDs can be user-controlled (eg, with xset(1))
# Option "Xleds" "1 2 3"
# To disable the XKEYBOARD extension, uncomment XkbDisable.
# Option "XkbDisable"
# To customise the XKB settings to suit your keyboard, modify the
# lines below (which are the defaults). For example, for a non-U.S.
# keyboard, you will probably want to use:
# Option "XkbModel" "pc102"
# If you have a US Microsoft Natural keyboard, you can use:
# Option "XkbModel" "microsoft"
#
# Then to change the language, change the Layout setting.
# For example, a german layout can be obtained with:
# Option "XkbLayout" "de"
# or:
# Option "XkbLayout" "de"
# Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys"
#
# If you'd like to switch the positions of your capslock and
# control keys, use:
# Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:swapcaps"
# Or if you just want both to be control, use:
# Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:nocaps"
#
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "keyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "PS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# If the normal CorePointer mouse is not a USB mouse then
# this input device can be used in AlwaysCore mode to let you
# also use USB mice at the same time.
Identifier "DevInputMice"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Compaq"
ModelName "15.4 WXGA"
HorizSync 31.0 - 40.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 70.0
Option "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "nvidia"
BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce 4 420 Go 32M"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024" "1280x800" "1024x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Group 0
Mode 0666
EndSection

Thank you for helping.

Please disregard this question. i have actually found a solution and it now works. nVidia has the necessary drivers.