[PLUG] How to upgrade to X11 R7.2?

[Cosmic]

Hello,

I am a n00b (I never worked with Linux before, though I am familiar
with AIX, HP-UX etc), so please bear with me.

I installed slackware 11 (came with some linux magazine) on my Shhh
office ;-) laptop Dell D620, with kernel 2.4.33, it worked fine except
the display, wifi and the scroll of my mouse. I can live without all
that except the display which is stuck at 1024x768 though my laptop
supports upto 1280x800. I spent my weekend surfing old mailing lists,
checking out forums but I couldnt get this part working (and now I
keep thinking probably I chose a wrong distro to start with :-(,
help!)

One of the things that I found was my xorg.conf is using Vesa and not
i810 which I believe supports higher resolution, but I dont know how
to install, that driver :(. I have added `915resolution 3c 1280 800`
to my rc.local file too. Following are the things that I tried:

root at pu66y:/tmp/src/driver/xf86-input-acecad# insmod i810
Using /lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel/drivers/char/drm/i810.o.gz
/lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel/drivers/char/drm/i810.o.gz: init_module:
Cannot allocate memory
/lib/modules/2.4.33.3/kernel/drivers/char/drm/i810.o.gz: Hint: insmod
errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid
IO or IRQ parameters.
      You may find more information in syslog or the output from dmesg
root at pu66y:/tmp/src/driver/xf86-input-acecad# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS/940GML and
945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile
945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML
Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High
Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express
Port 1 (rev 01)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express
Port 2 (rev 01)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express
Port 3 (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB
UHCI #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB
UHCI #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB
UHCI #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB
UHCI #4 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2
EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface
Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family)
Serial ATA Storage Controller IDE (rev 01)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 01)
03:01.0 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ601/6912/711E0
CardBus/SmartCardBus Controller (rev 40)
09:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5752
Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)
0c:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG
Network Connection (rev 02)

So I thought maybe I should upgrade X11 or the Kernel, I downloaded
the latest X11R7.2 src from x.org, but I dont know what to do after
that.. maybe I am doing the wrong way? Is the upgrade to be done by
installing binary packages only? Can I have 2 different versions of
X11 at same time? If you can point me to other resources that would be
helpful?

Even the kernel upgrade thing I tried failed (I compiled that wrong too).

Is there anyother distro that I could try? Since this is my work
laptop I would need to connect to Cisco VPN too, has any one have
experience with that?I thinking - I *should* try (without keeping
getting my finger burnt) is Fedora, also few of my servers are going
to have red-hat soon.

- Cosmicstop at gmail.com