hi,

I've just installed debian on my laptop and I'm having a very frustrating time with xstart. my xserver error log says that my video card driver is bad even though i have a radeon 7500 and the driver is ati. ive had this problem with ever nix variant that ive tryed to load on this lap top. freebsd's xserver wouldnt work as well as sound and my ps/2 mouse. red hat 7 worked but wouldnt detect my modem. knoppix worked but wouldnt save anything. i really need help with this debian problem. im new to linux so if anyone would kindly give me like some sort of walk through on how to get this thing work, step by step, id be very grateful.

Debian is a very difficult distro to use. u may want to consider other 'easier' distro like SuSE. you would want to configure your XFree86 server to use radeon driver instead of ati driver. (radeon is the Radeon-specific driver whereas ati driver is for use only with older ati card like ati rage 128, etc.)

modem problem: make sure u are not using one of those winmodem. (u may want to read http://linmodems.org/ for more information )

One suggestion. If Knoppix worked then just copy over the /etc/XF86Config-4 file from knoppix and use it with debian.

thanx for the replys. adz, i have no idea how todo that. heh. mind giving me a step by step? im sorta noobie i guess.thanx in advance.

It's just copying a file. When you run knoppix, your regular hard drives are still there. If you boot in KDE mode you can just click your hard drive's icon to mount it. Before you do so, right click it and select properties (or something like that) make sure you've given yourself all permissions and unclick the "mount read only" option. It will get mounted in /mnt/hdaX where X represents the partition number. Then just do an su followed by your root password to become root and then cp /etc/XF86Config-4 /mnt/hdaX/etc/XF86Config-4.knoppix. This will give you a copy of knoppix's XFree config file on your hard disc. Then boot debian and make a backup of your current config file. To do this do a cd /etc and then a cp XF86Config-4 XF86Config-4.bak. Then copy (or symlink) knoppix's config file into the right place with cp XF86Config-4.knoppix XF86Config-4. Then type startx (not as root) to start the X server and see if it works.

You should go to tuxmobil.org and see the experiences others have with your laptop model. I have this 5100 model and have a link on tuxmobil on how I make it works w/ Debian.

Which version of Debian have you installed (stable, testing or unstable)? If you have the stable version, you will need the latest X. Try to find your card using Xf86config. This will list all the cards supported and you can check if yours is supported. Or if you give full details of your problem, I can try to sort it out. Please post also the exact error messages.
Regards,
Maidros

My apologies, I gave you the wrong path. It's meant to be /etc/X11/XF86Config-4.