you have a lot of options. if you are asking for my advice, i'd stick with the install you have and try some of the options below. when it comes to detecting hardware, i haven't noticed a great difference between the different distros. i think your major problem is knowing exactly what hardware you have installed and specifying that exact information for linux. Dell has good documentation and a great website for detailing your hardware based on codes located on your machine. check themt out.
if you have windows installed, go to the start, programs, settings, control panel, and select system to see what hardware windows thinks you have (and while you are at it, check the display in control panel to see what settings windows is using)
if you want a "no-brainer" solution, go to
http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html
and download a diagnostic disk that will print out all of your hardware (very handy for linux users)
Rage Mobility M3?
Did you notice that there are different possible video cards for your model? One of the linux for laptops pages reported a problem free install on redhat 7.1 but the card was identified a Rage Mobility M3. see
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~maf/Inspiron4K.html
To try this, you might try using the xf86config command detailed below)
ATI Rage Mobility 128 M3 AGP 2x?
If you believe that you have the ATI Rage Mobility 128 M3 AGP 2x (rev 02), your could also try cutting and pasting an xconfig file from a separate successful install on rh 7.0. on this successful install the file looked like the following. An xconfig file provides a lot of options that are "commented out" (ignored) by linux. A line is commented out when it starts with "#." The options that are used by linux have no "#." Note two major differences in your configuration file and the successful ones:
1. the horizonal refresh rate on the successful install is HorizSync 30-60 (yours is Hsync 31.5 - 48.5)
2. the vertical refresh rate on the successful install is VertRefresh 60-90 (your is: Hsync Vert Refresh 50-70)
3. both have the standard VGA selected
# **********************************************************************
# Monitor section
# **********************************************************************
# Any number of monitor sections may be present
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "My Monitor"
# HorizSync is in kHz unless units are specified.
# HorizSync may be a comma separated list of discrete values, or a
# comma separated list of ranges of values.
# NOTE: THE VALUES HERE ARE EXAMPLES ONLY. REFER TO YOUR MONITOR'S
# USER MANUAL FOR THE CORRECT NUMBERS.
HorizSync 30-60
# HorizSync 30-64 # multisync
# HorizSync 31.5, 35.2 # multiple fixed sync frequencies
# HorizSync 15-25, 30-50 # multiple ranges of sync frequencies
# VertRefresh is in Hz unless units are specified.
# VertRefresh may be a comma separated list of discrete values, or a
# comma separated list of ranges of values.
# NOTE: THE VALUES HERE ARE EXAMPLES ONLY. REFER TO YOUR MONITOR'S
# USER MANUAL FOR THE CORRECT NUMBERS.
VertRefresh 60-90
EndSection
# **********************************************************************
# Graphics device section
# **********************************************************************
# Any number of graphics device sections may be present
# Standard VGA Device:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Standard VGA"
VendorName "Unknown"
BoardName "Unknown"
# The chipset line is optional in most cases. It can be used to override
# the driver's chipset detection, and should not normally be specified.
# Chipset "generic"
# The Driver line must be present. When using run-time loadable driver
# modules, this line instructs the server to load the specified driver
# module. Even when not using loadable driver modules, this line
# indicates which driver should interpret the information in this section.
Driver "vga"
# The BusID line is used to specify which of possibly multiple devices
# this section is intended for. When this line isn't present, a device
# section can only match up with the primary video device. For PCI
# devices a line like the following could be used. This line should not
# normally be included unless there is more than one video device
# intalled.
# BusID "PCI:0:10:0"
# VideoRam 256
# Clocks 25.2 28.3
EndSection
# Device configured by xf86config:
Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI Rage 128"
Driver "r128"
VideoRam 8192
# Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
EndSection
# **********************************************************************
# Screen sections
# **********************************************************************
# Any number of screen sections may be present. Each describes
# the configuration of a single screen. A single specific screen section
# may be specified from the X server command line with the "-screen"
# option.
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen 1"
Device "ATI Rage 128"
Monitor "My Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
Subsection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
EndSection
The above was taken from:
http://theory.gsi.de/~vanhees/XF86Co...l-inspiron4000