# Compaq Presario 2800 and XFree86 Problems

## total

Okay, here we go  :Very Happy: 

The system is a Compaq Presario 2800 with

P4m @ 1.4ghz

ATI Radeon Mobility M7 (and it is supported by Xfree, checked that  :Very Happy: )

15" lcd (1024x768)

and some more stuff...  :Very Happy: 

I've bootstrapped and installed the system and xfree without any problems at all, network, sound and most of the things works just fine, except for one thing... X.

After running xf86setup and setting X up like I usually do, I started X just to see that the text in xterms and some other graphics are VERY distored (the text is unreadable). The only thing that looks normal is the mouse cursor.

I've tried everything I could come up with and nothing seems to help, well... running in 8bpp seems to make it a little better, but it's still not usuable.

Any help on this would be appreciated because I really want to run gentoo on my laptop  :Smile: 

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## jezza

Ok I've got some experience with this on my Dell Inspiron 8200 w/ 15" TFT and Geforce4Go.  

My Geforce uses a special nvidia driver which you can emerge, does the Radeon have a more 'official' driver, as in not built intp xfree??  Then you might be able to get some kind of 3D acceleration.

Ok another issue is probably your /etc/X11/XF86Config file which is auto generated by xf86setup.  In my experience usually the xf86config settings will NOT be optimal for your laptop (the TFT display etc.).  You will need to edit your /etc/X11/XF86Config and ensure your modelines are set correctly.  

I'd suggest reading up on other Compaq users at this laptop guide

http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/compaq.html

this is how I got mine working, i.e. using similar machines configs.

Good luck   :Smile: 

Jeremy.

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## abhishek

 *jezza wrote:*   

> My Geforce uses a special nvidia driver which you can emerge, does the Radeon have a more 'official' driver, as in not built intp xfree??  Then you might be able to get some kind of 3D acceleration.
> 
> 

 i dont think there are any.  Far as i know nvida is the only 1 to port their drivers to linux.

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## total

Well, I did some googling  :Smile: , and found that I'm not the only one who has this problem, and the easiest way to fix it was to use the vesa driver for X. So I tried it and that works just fine, except for being kinda slow and without 3d support.

So I guess it's the ati driver that messes things up :/, and hopfully it will be fixed in the next release of Xfree86.

Thanks for the help and ideas btw...

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