Actually, this sort of thing is what HAL is for. When HAL recognizes the laptop, it can do things like setterm and so on. I don't have nearly as many laptops as Matthew Garrett, who's recently refactored some .fdi files for this sort of thing; he may have fixed your laptop in the process.
Can you please grab a liveCD of intrepid and test there?
Actually, this sort of thing is what HAL is for. When HAL recognizes the laptop, it can do things like setterm and so on. I don't have nearly as many laptops as Matthew Garrett, who's recently refactored some .fdi files for this sort of thing; he may have fixed your laptop in the process.
Can you please grab a liveCD of intrepid and test there?