Roving Hard Drive

[StarsLikeDust]

Hi I'm rather new to linux, Ive been testing various Linux Distro's by installing them on an external Hard Drive and booting from that. I've settled on the XFCE version of Mint. However in my experimenting I found I liked the functionality of the Live CDs.

Is there anything I should do to my install to help make it reasonably portable?

I'm particularly interested in properly detecting video cards as I don't know the terminal commands that well yet. Is there a way to have Mint detect that on startup? Ideally I would be able to use this harddrive to boot off of any computer whos bios supports boot from USB.

Not sure how much it matters but the external drive is IDE, Mint (with XFCE) is installed on a 8GB partition (active for boot) w/ 2GB swap additionally there is partition in NTFS (So windows boxes can store files to it if I need). I've been using that partition to store files in. Note: This is not like the USB flashdrive installs found elsewhere in the forum, I just installed normally (as far as I know) from the Live CD.

Thanks for any Advice

[Husse]

A preliminary suggestion
Set the video driver to "vesa" in xorg.conf
Vesa is a driver that works with everything, but it's a low performer
You can have several drivers installed and when you have booted change them in the "Monitors and graphics" applet in the Control Center (not sure if that's what it's called - I have a localized version)
Not sure exactly what you have in KDE, but there is some such applet
Then restart x - (ctrl+alt+backspace)

[StarsLikeDust]

Thanks for the Suggestion... er what part of the xorg.conf should I modify? Here is one I quickly made with dpkg-reconfigure:

# xorg.conf (xorg X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "0"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Driver "wacom"
Identifier "stylus"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option "Type" "stylus"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Driver "wacom"
Identifier "eraser"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option "Type" "eraser"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Driver "wacom"
Identifier "cursor"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
Option "Type" "cursor"
Option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "nVidia Corporation G72M [GeForce Go 7400]"
Driver "nvidia"
Busid "PCI:1:0:0"
Option "AddARGBVisuals" "True"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
Option "NoLogo" "True"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
Option "DPMS"
Horizsync 28-33
Vertrefresh 43-72
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "nVidia Corporation G72M [GeForce Go 7400]"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
Defaultdepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Modes "1280x800"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
screen "Default Screen"
Inputdevice "Generic Keyboard"
Inputdevice "Configured Mouse"

# Uncomment if you have a wacom tablet
# InputDevice "stylus" "SendCoreEvents"
# InputDevice "cursor" "SendCoreEvents"
# InputDevice "eraser" "SendCoreEvents"
Inputdevice "Synaptics Touchpad"
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "glx"
EndSection

(Sorry for the giant post)

[Husse]

This part

Section "Device"
Identifier "nVidia Corporation G72M [GeForce Go 7400]"
Driver "nvidia"

Temporarily change to
Driver "vesa"
If you have multiple drivers installed you can then just change to "intel" or "ati" or...
You have to learn what the different drivers are called to call them