I have not been able to completely install Debian Linux
successfully on a Dell Inspiron 4000 laptop. The main
hindrance seems to be the video chip/card which is an
ATI RAGE MOBILITY M3 AGP 2X LF.
The installation was attempted with the Potato 2.2
CD set. Almost everything except the graphics terminal--
virtual terminal 7, which is detailed below, appears
functional. I had to use xserver-svga as the graphics
card driver and manually edit the attached version
of /etc/X11/XF86Config--created with xf86config--
to get a quasi-functional system. According
to the Linux free utility the system has about 256 Meg
of RAM and about 125 Meg is devoted to swap space and
about 86 Meg is free.