A Google search using "LC2000 laptop" brings up a number of
interesting hits. Among them are many claiming problems with ATI
Radeon video, and the fact they use XFree86, not the current X.Org.

It also seems the LinuxCertified laptops are circa 2004-2006, and
the most recent page is dated back in 2007.

Do you know what video card is in your laptop? For what it's worth,
ATI has been acquired by AMD and they claim to still support Linux,
so checking for video drivers at AMD's site may be necessary.

As for using kernel 2.6.24 on a laptop, this is on a 5-year-old
Dell Latitude C610:

thad@ubuntu:~$ uname -a
Linux ubuntu 2.6.24-21-generic #1 SMP Tue Oct 21 23:43:45 UTC 2008 \
i686 GNU/Linux

thad@ubuntu:~$ cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.24-21-generic (buildd@palmer) (gcc version 4.2.3 \
(Ubuntu 4.2.3-2ubuntu7)) #1 SMP Tue Oct 21 23:43:45 UTC 2008

thad@ubuntu:~$ lspci | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc \
Radeon Mobility M6 LY

thad@ubuntu:~$ cat /etc/issue
Ubuntu 8.04.1 \n \l

Note the "lspci | grep VGA" command above; it reveals what video
hardware is in the laptop; mine is an ATI Radeon Mobility M6 LY.

Here's Ubuntu's page on using video:

<https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Video>

valerie@lc2000:~$ lspci | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS,
943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)

valerie@lc2000:~$ uname -a
Linux lc2000 2.6.20-16-generic #2 SMP Tue Feb 12 05:41:34 UTC 2008
i686 GNU/Linux

valerie@lc2000:~$ cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.20-16-generic (root@terranova) (gcc version 4.1.2
(Ubuntu 4.1.2-0ubuntu4)) #2 SMP Tue Feb 12 05:41:34 UTC 2008

valerie@lc2000:~$ cat /etc/issue
Ubuntu 8.04.1 \n \l

Your kernel is significantly older than mine which is also an 8.04.1
system.

Have you been allowing the updates to occur? 8.04.1 is a "LTS" which
means it's supported for a number of years (until at least 2011 (?)).
I receive updates at least every 2-3 days (including the kernel --
several times this year already).

in addition since I have updated too many times the /boot drive is
full and synaptic won't run for now. I need to try to make some room
by deleting things manually if possible

valerie@lc2000:/boot$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 12G 4.5G 6.1G 43% /
varrun 502M 156K 502M 1% /var/run
varlock 502M 0 502M 0% /var/lock
udev 502M 132K 502M 1% /dev
devshm 502M 12K 502M 1% /dev/shm
lrm 502M 33M 469M 7%
/lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/volatile
/dev/sda1 99M 95M 0 100% /boot
/dev/sda6 39G 710M 37G 2% /home
/dev/sda5 3.7G 733M 2.8G 21% /var

valerie@lc2000:/boot$ ls
abi-2.6.20-16-generic initrd.img-2.6.24-18-generic
abi-2.6.24-16-generic initrd.img-2.6.24-18-generic.bak
abi-2.6.24-17-generic initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic
abi-2.6.24-18-generic initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic.bak
abi-2.6.24-19-generic lost+found
abi-2.6.24-21-generic memtest86+.bin
config-2.6.20-16-generic System.map-2.6.20-16-generic
config-2.6.24-16-generic System.map-2.6.24-16-generic
config-2.6.24-17-generic System.map-2.6.24-17-generic
config-2.6.24-18-generic System.map-2.6.24-18-generic
config-2.6.24-19-generic System.map-2.6.24-19-generic
config-2.6.24-21-generic System.map-2.6.24-21-generic
grub vmlinuz-2.6.20-16-generic
initrd.img-2.6.20-16-generic vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic
initrd.img-2.6.20-16-generic.bak vmlinuz-2.6.24-17-generic
initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic vmlinuz-2.6.24-18-generic
initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic.bak vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic
initrd.img-2.6.24-17-generic vmlinuz-2.6.24-21-generic
initrd.img-2.6.24-17-generic.bak

That may be the solution.

If Synaptic can't run (or the equivalent updater due to lack of disk
space), you're running behind current updates for 8.04.1 (LTS).

Partitioning recommendations from "others" has been a problem with both
UNIX and Linux since the 1990s. With today's hard disk capacities and
assuming the system is a personal workstation, there's no reason to
partition a disk into separate slices for /, /var, /usr, etc. Even with
my Solaris systems everything (except swap) is in a single partition
under / with the exception for a separate partition for a "live update".

/home may be an exception -- this depends on one's requrements.

back to the graphics problem. I cannot ever use a linux kernal after
26.20 or I don't get it to load x.

what I did was try to remove some older files and got some room back.
Now I will try to run synaptic again
valerie@lc2000:/boot$ sudo rm *2.6.24-16*
valerie@lc2000:/boot$ sudo rm *2.6.24-17*
valerie@lc2000:/boot$ ls
abi-2.6.20-16-generic config-2.6.24-18-generic
initrd.img-2.6.20-16-generic.bak lost+found
System.map-2.6.24-21-generic
abi-2.6.24-18-generic config-2.6.24-19-generic
initrd.img-2.6.24-18-generic memtest86+.bin
vmlinuz-2.6.20-16-generic
abi-2.6.24-19-generic config-2.6.24-21-generic
initrd.img-2.6.24-18-generic.bak System.map-2.6.20-16-generic
vmlinuz-2.6.24-18-generic
abi-2.6.24-21-generic grub
initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic System.map-2.6.24-18-generic
vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic
config-2.6.20-16-generic initrd.img-2.6.20-16-generic
initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic.bak System.map-2.6.24-19-generic
vmlinuz-2.6.24-21-generic
valerie@lc2000:/boot$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 12G 4.5G 6.1G 43% /
varrun 502M 156K 502M 1% /var/run
varlock 502M 0 502M 0% /var/lock
udev 502M 132K 502M 1% /dev
devshm 502M 12K 502M 1% /dev/shm
lrm 502M 33M 469M 7%
/lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/volatile
/dev/sda1 99M 60M 35M 64% /boot
/dev/sda6 39G 710M 37G 2% /home
/dev/sda5 3.7G 733M 2.8G 21% /var

well now by deleting the extras the way I did, I am now able to
download and install updates again. Therefore, back to wanting to get
the most recent kernel working here rather than being forced to always
use 2.6.20 forever