I have a Dell Inspiron 8200 that I am trying to get started with Linux on. I have a DVD with Mint Maya (13) and it will boot from CD but obviously has a video problem.

When boot is done there is a blank white screen (progress from a black one). If I hit the right key (don't know which one at this point) I get a menu on a blue screen except it is unreadable (it looks like a menu with 2 rows of items containing an icon and characters that just appear as white blocks). There is an input line I can get to and if I type HELP something happens but without proper video I can't tell u what.

I can select an item with the cursor keys and launch it with Enter. (mouse pointer not visible here).

The ? is how do I get this to boot with a Go4 440 driver??? (I am assuming that is what is needed).

This thread at the Mint forums might help: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=122257

It's been years since I've had to deal with anything other than Intel graphics, so I can't offer any personal experience.

According the specs that I found here, the machine is a P4 with 512 MB RAM out of the box. That might pose a bit of a challenge. I recently set up a celeron machine with 1 GB RAM with Mint 16 for my son; it worked fine with LXDE, and MATE worked, but with plenty of time for coffee breaks.

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