LinuxQuestions.org - Need help with a display problem

Hello. I am fairly new to linux, and have just installed Slackware on my laptop. I have figured out a number of problems that I had, but there is one lingering problem that I have. When I start up Slack, the intitial screen is quite small compared to the size of my sceen. Then I run startx and the GUI screen is slightly larger, though still not full screen on my laptop. I have run xf86config (which shouldn't be the entire problem as the problem exists before I begin the GUI), and cannot get it to accept a 1600x1200 screen. The best I can do is 1280x1024. If I could at least get the GUI to run in full screen, that would be great, but I would also like the initial prompt to show up in full screen.

I have this same problem when I run knoppix, and also the startup screen in Windows does the same thing (that is, does not take up the full screen). So maybe this is a deeper problem. Then again, when I open the BIOS config program, that shows up full screen. I have tried running options into the kernal from the boot disk (like vga=some number that I got from the table that I get when I push F1), but that just gave me an error. I try to put vga=799 and I get "Could not find kernal image: vga=799.

Here are some of my system specs. I have a Dell Inspiron 8100 with a UXGA screen and a GeForce2 GO video card. The screen has a resolution of 1600x1200 and has a 60Hz refresh rate. The video card has 32Mb of memory. Upon calling Dell, they told me that the hsync is 31-60 kHz and the vsync is 60-75 kHz. I have tried running xf86config with the recommended vertical and horizontal sync ranges and with my actual ranges, plus with my actual ranges minus some small number. When I I put in all of my actual specs, I cannot startx. Part of the problem may be that I choose the NVIDIA GeForce (w/ a GeForce chipset) from the list of video card definitions (#349) when my actual card may differ slightly, due to it being a mobile version.

Any help or insight would be very much appreciated. I think I will try to recompile my kernal, and hope that that helps matters. (Actually, I would want to do that anyway for performance reasons.) Help me! Thanks!