I've recently installed Fedora Core Release 5. Whenever I run "init 5", the entire screen becomes scrambled, and I can't see anything except an indistinct square where the cursor is.

Are you sure that you're using the correct driver for your card?

If you're using your laptop, X may not have the appropriate driver for an integrated card. Try another variant maybe.

Sorry; I'm an idiot - variant of X? Or variant of Linux?

the problem is you are using linux

Variant of the available drivers. I don't have my laptop, and thus access to a linux system, on me at the moment, but I believe there are three or four variants for some cards, especially ATI cards.

Lemme know what chipset your card is.



Quiet, you.

It's an ATI Radeon 200M, I think.

(Edit: Xpress 200)

http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/linux/linux-firegl.html

http://www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/linux_8.16.20.html

See if that works for you. If not, I can pull out my laptop and tinker around to see if I can find the right settings. I have a Radeon IGP345M something or other, but the process should be similar.

Also, I haven't messed with Fedora Core since 2, and then only on my desktop which has an NVidia card that plays nice, but I've had a lot of success with hardware detection with (K)Ubuntu, so that may also be something to try.

I tried installing Kubuntu 6.10, but, whenever I boot the CD, it spins the CD a bunch and works the HDD for a bit, and then just sits there with a cursor blinking. :/

Kubuntu installed fine on my computer with an x200M.

I downloaded and tried to install the ATI drivers, but the installer script thought I was running SATA and kept on erroring out. :downs:

This was your second mistake after Linux.

I'm downloading the Kubuntu DVD ISO now (since my last burn of Kubuntu took my last CD-R, and it's borked :argh:), so hopefully this situation will be resolved.

Snow Crash.

Well, I got Kubuntu up and running. And then my laptop's monitor went completely white and then stopped working. Thankfully, this happened exactly two days before my one-year warranty expired, so Toshiba's paying for it all.

Now, as long as they don't find out that I used my laptop to break my fall on some ice, I'm all good...