910 KU live boot CD Graphics fail 6yo Compaq laptop. (jor)

[giovanni_re]

=====  TRYING TO INSTALL KU 910, BUT GRAPHICS PROBLEMS
I'm working to see if I can get KU 910 onto a laptop that runs KU 904 ok (from the alternate, text based installer CD) (there are some minor existing issues like Kate & some other program occasionally get rectangles of garbage (typically dots on a black background)), but that doesn't affect the 910 install issue).

=====  PROBLEMS:
KU 910 live boots to the GUI desktop display OK except:
1) the bottom task bar is all black
2) Mouse over where the K-start button is (LHS) & the popup window is garbage (ie, some incorrect graphic, perhaps a hash pattern, perhaps random, i don't recall exactly)).  
3) left click on where the k-start button should be & the menu popup is garage
4) _right_ click on the k-s button, the popup is correct & readable. Select "classic menu style" & the menu properly changes to classic, & that menu displays ok. Further, now the bottom of screen task bar changes from black to gray garbage (hash pattern?).

So, maybe this is an X driver issue.

Or, maybe it is a KDE issue.

>From the 910 _Ubuntu_ live boot CD, everything works properly graphics wise. I'm able to boot & the simple "robots" game displays on the screen, no graphics problems.

=====  QUESTIONS:
So:
1) LIVE BOOT CD W/ PARTITION SHRINKER:
I want to get some live boot CD that has a partition shrinker, so I can shrink my existing linux partition, so I can keep my existing working 904 install, & also make room for a small partition to test out an install of KU 910.

What live boot CD has that capability? Knoppix? puppy??? It's been a while since I used one, & I don't know the current good rescue distros. Does an earlier KU live boot CD have the partition resizer?

Where is there a list of rescue CDs?  Didn't distrowatch used to have a page listing them? I don't see it.
http://distrowatch.com/


2) PREFERRED 910 INSTALL METHOD - WHAT WILL GET GRAPHICS WORKING?
Given the graphics problems with 910 live CD, & desire for a properly working install might I be better off:
a) doing the 910 install on a fresh partition (using either live or alternate install), & do an apt-update to get the latest sw, & perhaps that graphics problem will go away, or
b) doing _another_ 904 KU install on a fresh partition, & then following the 904 to 910 upgrade procedure (which might pull in a working X driver newer than the one on the 910 live CD), or
c) ? something else?

=====  TOOL TO SHOW HARDWARE?  LIKE IN KDE 3 KCONTROL?
One final thought is about how KDE 3 used to have kcontrol that had some program to display hardware system info (Processor?? graphics?) - it's mainly the graphics hw I want to find out about.

Has that kcontrol program died out?  I don't see anything like it in my desktop 904 KU system, which has upgrades to the ppa launchpad newer KDE 4 than comes with ku 904.

Is there any other tool for 910 KU that enables one to see the system hardware info?  Maybe something from the GNOME system??


Thanks :)