SuSE live works...

So you might try to copy the file /etc/xorg.conf (or ist /etc/X11/xorg.conf, not sure at the moment) from the SuSE live CD and use this. I don't know SuSE live, but I got 3D and hardware acceleration of my ATI Radeon 9200 working by copying that file from a SuSE 9.1 Pro system over to Slackware.

In fact, this is really one of the (very few!) weak points in Slackware (or in Xorg, rather): The configuration tools xorgconf and xorgcfg both suck. I am not normally a fanboy of vendor specific tools, but SuSE's SaX is far superior to these tools (and it's used by a couple of distros unrelated to SuSE, now: Yoper and ROCK Linux).

So you might want to let YaST/SaX create the config file and copy it over to your target system. Don't forget to rename, as in SuSE it's still called something XFree86.conf (or so), but in Slack it has to be xorg.conf.

Good luck!

gargamel

I wouldn't expect big problems --- almost all new laptops run well under Linux. But to avoid problems, you could

- look at the sites of component vendors like ATI for drivers; if they don't offer a Linux driver for the system you intend to buy, don't buy that computer
- take a look here: http://cdp.suse.com
- take your SuSE live or Knoppix or SLAX CD to the PC shop, and see if it boots flawlessly

Have fun!

gargamel

I don't pretend to be knowledgeable about these technicalities but I recently put a very minimal installation of Slack 10 on an old 233MH laptop with 32 MB RAM and it worked fine. During my fiddling to get it to open straight into the desktop without logging in (it is only used for writing at home) I seem to recall discovering that startx opens the x server in a slightly different way to the login managers - at one stage I could run X from gdm or xdm but not with startx.

I suggest you try installing gdm or xdm and setting the default runlevel to 4 (in /etc/innitab). I do not think these login managers need X as logging out closes X anyway does it not. Worth a try anyway I should have thought. GDM might be best as it can be configured to do various things like opening a selection of desktops.. If that works you can look inside startx and find out what files it calls. and hopefully track the problem down.

UPDATE: It works!! kinda...

I installed Slackware 10 again last night, and after playing around with startup scripts (/etc/rc.d) for hours i ended up disabling agpgart (in rc.modules) and setting chmod 666 on both rc.pcmcia and rc.hotplug. After I did this I was able to load X on ANY desktop environment and with the default xorg.conf.

This means: the conflict was never in the configuration settings of xorg, and even though I tried copying configs from the live distros that worked it never seemed to get far enough in slackware to even read that file. Since getting X to load, I have set up xorg.conf to use the appropriate refresh rates and video chipset.

I then went back and tried enabling the startup scripts hotplug and pcmcia one at a time, and if EITHER is enabled then running startx will result in the same black screen with absolutely no activity.

Here's the weird part, I can boot without those scripts, load gnome (my personal preference, it will work on any of them now) and open a terminal, go to /etc/rc.d and type:
and both services will function fine. My usb is not started until hotplug is run, but after i run it manually i can access my usb flash stick fine...and pcmcia cards do not work until pcmcia is run but when i start it up manually i have internet over my pcmcia network card.

The real question now is, is anyone out there more enlightened than I that could shed some light on this situation? I would love to be able to put hotplug and pcmcia back into startup, but how could i do that and not cause a conflict for the X server starting up?

"I'm really interested in buying a new laptop soon, and I was wondering what brands in general seem to work better or maintain easier under linux, such as Intel vs. AMD, nvidia vs. ati, or even what laptop models have been known to work well with linux."

Hopefully this saves somebody from getting frustrated...

Stay away from the ATI Mobility Video chips... Very bad Ju-Ju. It is now possible to get 3d acceleration (note: 2.5 years AFTER I bought the laptop) using beta drivers and blah blah.. Ive tried countless installs, version changes, program changes (Xorg to XFree and back again, etc.) and still no 3d.

Everything else is easy enough tho.

I realize this thread gracefully died 8 months ago, but this is pretty important so i gotta revive it. I finally got a new laptop. If you are looking to buy a laptop with excellent support in Linux, go out and buy an IBM (Lenovo) Thinkpad. There is so much support out there it's insane, and the laptop itself is a sturdy reliable NOTEBOOK COMPUTER, not just a portable media player like most new laptops. I got the first notebook that was made after the buyout of IBM's PC dept. from Lenovo in China, the Thinkpad T43, and it is just as good as what IBM was putting out. I'm using Slackware 10.1 with Dropline Gnome (tried and true combination, which is why i'm still using it after all this time) and besides the ATI video card i had very little difficulty getting everything to work on it. ATI's proprietary linux drivers are a disgrace, but they get a little better with each release, so I can only hope that one day they will catch up with nVidia's level of linux support. It took me over 2 weeks to get them working, but finally yesterday I got that too, so I can confidently say I'm very satisfied with how this laptop runs in linux.
As for the old Kapok 7200 that was the original subject of this thread, i gave it to my younger brother and he's eagerly playing around with gentoo on it (although not successfully, but he's learning fast).
Ok so the real point of this post is to tell anyone that's looking for a new laptop with the intent of installing linux on it right out of the box, especially with Slackware, buy an IBM Thinkpad! You will never regret it.