I ran across a post in a forum on the Gentoo Forums that pointed out a VERY dirty hack to get the ATI Mobility x1400 working correctly at the correct resolutions. I haven’t check to see if anything else is working (3D, accelleration, etc) because all I really needed was correct 2D working at 1920×1200. I was able to get my laptop to work now with 1920×1200 resolution which just looks great. One issue that I’m having is that when using the console, my font is fuzzy. Fuzzy meaning the pixels around the words are constantly turning on and off in some places. This is not the console in Xorg, but the one when you hit ALT-F1 …
The only way I was able to get the ati drivers to compile correctly was to switch from using the -mm kernel branch to the standard gentoo sources branch. I was then able to get the ati drivers to install correctly. After that I was able to switch a driver out with one at this website. At that point, everything worked correctly.
Since I switched kernels, my wireless card has stopped working again. Since I want this laptop for work, which I have a wired connection at work, I’m not too worried about it. I’ll get it working eventually, just need to spend more time getting it to work with the non -mm kernel.
The day after I posted this, ATI finally came out with drivers that support the x1400 chipset in Linux. You can go to The ATI Linux Drivers Page to get the drivers. They’re not in Gentoo Portage yet though.
The card actually now supports the Radeon (and Mobility) X1300, X1600, and X1900. I know a lot of people have been waiting for these to come out.