The Laptop section of http://www.aa.net/~swear/pedia/index.html
has a link to http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-laptop/
which is the best laptop site I've seen. It has mini-HOWTOs on
three AST Ascentia models. Not yours, but you might find something
helpful there. Also check out the XFree86 section of
http://www.aa.net/~swear/pedia/x.html for docs on mode lines, etc.