Boot CD not working on Gateway Laptop

[physicusman]

Hello everyone,

I was really excited to find out about this version of Linux, but I can not make it work with my laptop. Here are the specs...

Gateway MX6920 w/ 15.4" LCD 1280x800 Native Resolution
Intel Core 2 Duo T5600 1.8ghz Dual core
Intel 945GM Mobile Chipset
2GB Kingston DDR SODIMM 533mHZ
120GB WD SATA HD
Phillips DVD/RW Burner
Intel Built in Wireless

It boots up fine from the cd, then when the desktop appears and gnome starts up, it doesn't do anything else. I see the wallpaper background, but No desktop icons, a tool bar shows up, but there's nothing to click on. Anyone else have any luck getting these Gateway laptops to work? I have also checked the md5 sum of the iso and burned the disk @ 8x speed to verify it wasn't a bad image. Please help me if you can.

Thanks.

[codesplice]

Have you tried launching the LiveCD in safe graphics mode?