I was trying to get X working. I used the 'nv' driver that came with X and when i did a start X, the screen came up all distorted. I downloaded the third party drivers from nvidia.com and build the driver module. When I try to use this module and do a 'startx' it looks like I did a 'cat /dev/urandom' and then the whole system just freezes. Can anyone help me with this problem please?

You need to download the newer nvidia driver from the NVIDIA Driver Download Page
open the .run file you downloaded with sh or use ./NVIDIA*.sh from the console (when you're in the directory it was downloaded to)

Sorry... didn't read your post properly.
Anyways, make sure the driver is the latest and that XFree is configured to use the 'nvidia' driver insead of 'nv'. Try updating XFree. It might also be worth reading the readme on the nvidia site.

I was thinking of buying one of these. Have you come across any other issues. Please be verbose

Ok,
It's pretty straightforward to set it up now that I've realised my mistakes..

Firewire is supported by the kernel.... just get the information from the 'lspci -v' and compile your module for your firewire..
I have not tried getting the modem to work, but I don't think that there is support for the modem.
I have the ethernet working correctly now. I downloaded the source from the Broadcom's website and compiled it against my kernel source. Also note that you should turn of APIC support in the kernel for this to work or else you get a problem that I was having that I have a separate post for

Video works fine after you have you download the drivers from nVidia and you also compile CONFIG_AGP and CONFIG_AGP_INTEL into your kernel.

I'm working on the wireless now, Linuxant has a DriverLoader to get the wireless card working but it's non free so I'm trying to find a free solution before I go in that direction.

I haven't been able to get both DVD and cd-rw working at the same time, since they are one drive and when ide-scsi is loaded... dvd doesn't work, when it isn't dvd works but not cd-rw
so i'm going ot have to figure out a way to solve that problem....


that's about it for this laptop... hope you have an easier time setting it up than i did... oh yeah... RTFM helps too