Hello,

Yep i have officially seen the light. Windows may have a choke hold on the world but i need to get away. A little background, i have been wanting to try linux for a long time now. Recently picked up a free laptop(Fried HDD and CPU heatsink/fan assembly) replaced them now i want to try linux on the laptop and maintain access to the internet during my conversion stage with windows(then i'll dump 'em)

So heres the deal, went to the library got a red hat 7.0 book, has the disks in it. and i've DLed a Debian using jigdo(interesting program to say the least)

Have tried both on the laptop but the display and Xserver never seem to work. I'm just looking for general advice on this.

Laptop info-

HP OImnibook XE3-GF
Celeron 933 MHz
Intel 830M graphics card
20 Gig toshiba HDD
128 RAM

I'm really sorry for the lack of info but i really don't have a clue where to start.


Did I leave anything out?
Thanks much in advance for all the Guru support i'm sure i'll receive.

Welcome to LQ! Hope you can escape the corruption of this world, namely, Mirco$loth!

Try this site -> http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/hp.html
The very first link I looked at has your model and the guy installed Debian. His info looks very thorough, though I didn't read it all.
Also try -> http://tuxmobil.org/
and then, of course, there's the Linux - Laptop and Handheld forum right here at LQ!

May I offer one piece of advice? Be patient, it's a new language. :}

Hey thanks Chinaman,

I guess what i really need is just a good distro(free,student = no monies) to get my feet wet with linux. Laptop seems to be supported for the most part the only part im having troubles with is configuring the X server. I did read somewhere that a newer kernel will support my graphics cards Intel i830M. Anyone able to walk me thru getting the newest kernel and adding it to my surrent istallation of redhat. I cant use a Graphical user interface so im stuck with command prompt while i attempt to fix this.

Current Kernel is 2.2.16-22


I'd really like to use debian as they at least have the distro i do have of it supports my laptops LCD, but i think i still need the kernel or whatever because the Xserver fails to work under the debian woody i have also tried.

thanks- BG

Have a look at this link ->
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...der=descending
There's some good stuff there, and then scroll down to
Newbie Guide To Compiling A Kernel! because if you're going
to leave Mirco$loth's demonic grip, and use Linux, you will
absolutely have to recompile your kernel - sooner or later,
so why not now? There are some other guides on that page
which will help you learn about Linux. Instead of me posting
the links, why don't you spend a little time reading that stuff
before you jump off the deep end. You'll find that if you read
in advance, and then give it a shot, most of the folks here at
LQ will be glad to help you over the next hump, or pick up the
pieces if need be.

Here's a couple of more links to help you out ->
http://www.thinkindependent.net/commandline/index.shtml
http://linux-newbie.sunsite.dk/
http://tille.soti.org/training/tldp/index.html

While you're risking you life in Windoze, you might as well get
some use out of it. Do you know how to go to System Properties
and see what hardware you have? If you don't really know how
to do that, then download Belarc Advisor and it will tell you
what is in your computer.

Good man! Google is your friend. :}

Four questions, btw:

(1) What does your thread title mean? What's FNG?

(2) Is there any particular error message you had with X?

(3) Why don't you download Slackware and get to the real Linux?

(4) Have you considered using a Linux Live-CD, which boots from
the CD-ROM drive and runs in RAM? You can at least look at it and
determine your hardware, and some configuration. Or, you might
just want to run Linux from a CD for a while. You can use CD2 from
Slackware 9.1, or the Knoppix Live-CD from Klaus Knopper.

Heh i edited my post as you we're replying it seems.

FNG(army term, just finished 6 yrs. yay!)
Fu**ing New Guy


Display is a digital flat panel
1024x768 @ 60hertz


error when trying to run startx-
basically it tells me it cant detect the LCD, most probobly because i cant seem to configure it properly with my current distros, thats where my kernel thing comes in.

Slackware...I did look at it, wanted to DL it but the bittorrent was going to take umm somewhere around 276 hours to DL the Disk 1 ISO. Any other way to get slackware9.1 besides bittorrent or $$$.

Thanks again, going to read the links you provided.

well here it is my first post under a Linux OS. I DLed knoppix live CD per chinaman's recommendation. I am very impressed. Now to figure out how to get Knoppix as my actual OS

back to google.

just wanted to share my small victory with everyone

Hey, BlenderGuy, what does your sig mean?

To get Knoppix on your hard drive, do this here ->

If it's already up and running, press Ctrl + Alt + F1 to get a console,
type knx-hdinstall
or
Click on the shell icon and enter
sudo knx-hdinstall
or just shut it down, then reboot, and at the boot: prompt type
knx-hdinstall

I haven't done that but twice, and it's been a while, but I think
it's pretty easy after that. I do remember that you'll want to
make sure and enter your current language and time zone.
Klaus is from Germany, so it defaults to German as the langauge.
Of course, that may be what you want! :}

Me, I'm still trying hard to read English, while learning Chinese!

God Bless!