the X Window System

The laptop contains a ``S3 ProSavageDDR K4M266'', which is perfectly supported in XFree86 4.2 and above. If you're running Woody, that means you have to install a back-port; have a look at http://www.apt-get.org to find one. Alternatively, you could download the driver's source from the author's website, which is linked to from the documentation section at http://www.xfree86.org/, but I do not recommend that.

You have to pick the ``savage'' driver module.

One minor gotcha: by enabling CONFIG_AGP and CONFIG_AGP_VIA, you can use the AGP Graphical Aperture, but you'll need to supply the 'agp_try_unsupported' option to make it load. It works here (as in: it didn't fry my system yet), but the option is probably there for a reason; if you want to make sure nothing happens by doing that, ask around first.

There's a driver with 3D acceleration available from VIA/S3. The source of this driver is at http://www.linux.org.uk/~alan/S3.zip, or in binary form from http://www.viaarena.com/, with some persistent searching.

However, that driver only supports the kernel shipped with RedHat 8; as this kernel is quite heavily patched (and as the driver requires some extensive kernel support), this driver doesn't currently compile on systems running a different kernel, unfortunately.

The laptop comes with a Synaptics touch pad. Although that works perfectly well with the usual mouse driver (at least under 2.4), there's a special driver module for X, which you can download at http://w1.894.telia.com/~u89404340/touchpad/index.html¹. It gives you some extra stuff, such as allowing you to scroll (button 4/5 and 6/7 events) by sliding your finger near the edge of the touch pad, and makes the hardware scroll button (the one between your hardware left and right mouse buttons) work. There's a bit of documentation in the tar-ball you can download, which includes pretty straightforward installation instructions.

If you're using 2.6, note that you need to load the 'evdev' module before your touch pad will ever work. Also, if you're using both 2.6 and 2.4, I recommend to make sure the evdev module loads at boot, whilst using the ``auto-dev'' protocol and ``/dev/psaux'' device; if you do that, you don't have to reconfigure your X server after every reboot.