~ linux update: the garbled and fragmented display still appears the moment we ‘startx’. our video card (s3 virge gx) is supported under xfree86 4.0.2, so we have turned our attention to the ‘dot clock’. assuming the specs on compaq hong kong’s website [w] are correct, we have ascertained our monitor’s rates as such: hsync: 69, vsync: 50-90. there is the issue, of course, that our presario mv700 monitor is not from hong kong and is not engineered for their power cycles. nevertheless, we are fiddling with the sync rates, setting them higher and lower, according to screen resolutions. however, this is exceedingly difficult, when our terminal window appears the way it does. we know that we are not the only people to have issues with this monitor or card, but we have yet to see documentation on a resolution; if we have, we didn’t understand it as such. if by chance you’ve managed to achieve success with gnome or kde using this hardware, please get in touch.

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