Hi.

Dell Inspiron 8000 with ATI Mobility M4 graphics!
Iam a tester who want to be a user of linux and I have chosen Ubuntu
to be my distro at the moment.

Since this is an very old laptop I first thought linux would just work
on it and then I thought that maybe it is easier to find newer laptops
that work since manufacturers nowadays put more effort into making
linux work on Dell machines.

Anyway I've tried to get Ubuntu up and running on my Dell Inspiron
8000 machine.
Sadly to say both Ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10 have problems\bugs with the Ati
Mobility M4 discrete graphics cards and the touchpad isn't working
either. I've filed a bug in launchpad and we're trying to see if there
is a coresponding bug in the X.org bugzilla\tracker but no exact match
have been decided upon.

If anyone knows of this problem and how to solv it or wants to help
fix\triage the bug you can find it here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/247771

There are ATI RPM packages on the Dell support site but if those are
in ubuntu or not I don't know. The corrupted screen can be mittigated
by connecting an external display though this only brings a correct
picture on the internal laptop display and doesn't recognize the
external display witch in my case is an Samsung Syncmaster 213T.

Iam glad for all the hlep I can get since this is stopping me from
migrating to linux!

Thansk for YOUR help!