I've read some of the posts regarding the problems with the Radeon Mobility 9600 chipset, which I also have. I have both Mandrake 9.1 and 9.2. 9.1 tests your screen configuration before rebooting, but 9.2 doesn't. Unfortunately, I've tried almost every monitor/card/resolution combo I could find and nothing worked. If I let it reboot into Linux, how can I get a driver (from ATI, let's say) installed from the command prompt so I can start working? I'm definitely a newbie, but not a computer-illiterate. Thanks in advance for any help. My stats are below:

HP Pavilion zx5000
1GB PC2100
Mobile P4 2.4Ghz
ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 64MB
60 GB 5400RPM
802.11g
Realtek NIC
Default resolution= 1920 x 1200 (hopefully this isn't a problem)
Some kind of cheap mobo chipset which doesn't reveal itself

My ATI Radeon has given me a lot of trouble. ATI doesn't even support it's mobility chipsets (go here (http://www.ati.com/support/driver.html). For the ATI Mobility Linux drivers, you are redirected to your laptop's manufacturer. So getting the drivers really depends on whether HP supports it.

Personally, I've found great difficulty getting my ATI card to work on both my RH9 and Fedora Core 1 systems. It's supposed to be easy: go to the driver website , download and install. But complications occur and I ended up with a 2D-no-3D-acceleration system. So wasteful of wonderful hardware acceleration =(

So my advice is, don't lose all your hair over this. If you find no success after 10-15 minutes, it may be a good idea to move on and achieve something more worthwhile. Because you are newbie, I recommend using vmware in Windows and installing Mandrake (virtually) on vmware. Then if you have problems, getting back to Windows is as easy as a hot-key or a mouse-click. This'll also smooth your transition to Linux.

Good luck.

Well, that doesn't sound too promising. How can I at least install the ATI drivers from the command prompt, just to give them a try? 2D is enough right now now, but I certainly understand the lack of support for 3D. Thanks.