The problem I have is when I boot the live CD to the point of login I switch to terminal and install compiz, at this point every thing works fine. Now I login to the desktop and every thing is fine. I change the desktop effects to enable them and this is where the screen gets messed up see post (http://scientificlinuxforum.org/index.php?showtopic=642) to see a picture. If I change the desktop effects and then try to go back I get that black section to the right and can not get ride of it till I reboot the system. The reason I want to change to SL is the LTS, plus it's very close to RHEL and I want to study RHEL.

I have Fedora 14 installed on this laptop and every thing works just fine, but seeing how Fedora has changed their desktop to Gnome3/Shell and the support is going to run out soon I want to change to SL. On a side note this laptop (Toshiba Satellite M35X) spec here (http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/toshiba-satellite-m35x-s163/4507-3121_7-31322069.html) will not run any Ubuntu above 9.04 nor will it run any openSUSE above 11.1.

It's not a real big deal to have desktop effects turned on but I have in the past shown it to some people and they have said I want that so then I tell them how to get it, or help them get it. I know that servers don't run compiz but it is nice to have when you want it.

I have noticed some deference between compiz version in the named distos.
Scientific Linux 6.0 compiz 0.8.2 (wont run)
Scientific Linux 5.6 compiz 0.0.13 (wont run)
Ubuntu 9.04 compiz 0.8.2 (will run)
Ubuntu 9.10 and 10.04 compiz 0.8.4 (wont run)
openSUSE 11.1 compiz 0.7.8 (will run)
Fedora 14 compiz 0.8.6 (will run)

I'm not the best at Linux but I can get my way around some what, and there is still a lot for me to learn. I also know that Linux has had problems with the Intel 855GME chip set driving the video.

Is there any way you could tell how to fix this, or is there a patch some where, I really would like to have SL on this laptop.

Thanks for all your help.