Laptops :: video issues on Dell Inspiron 1150

I am having a problem with the DSL live-cd that other people seem to be having. However, after reading through the forum and wiki I wasn't able to correct the problem.

I'm using a Dell Inspiron 1150 with a 2.6GHz Celeron and 512MB of RAM.

DSL doesn't seem to be able to detect all the video modes my computer is capible of. It defaults to what appears to be 1024x768 with 8-bit color. I've been through the X setup and the Vesa setup and the best I have been able to do is get 16-bit color in 640x480. I've tried all the cheatcodes I could find and I still could not get the correct color. When I list all the modes in terminal, the only 16-bit mode it lists is 640x480.
This is the first Linux I've had this problem with. I've used Ubuntu, Suse, Mandriva, Fedora Core, Puppy, Slax, Kororra and Knoppix.

Is there maybe a way I can force it to display 1024x768 with at least 16-bit color even though that mode is not detected? Has anyone had any luck with Inspiron 1150s?

Thanks in advance!

Download and use the XFree86.dsl extension from the MyDSL repository. Read the info file for more information.

I checked out some reviews, given that the Dell Inspirion 1000 works fine. The 1150 uses a different chipset entirely (Intel 852GMV vs SiSM650 and different graphics processor. I also checked the reviews, and noted people having lots of problems including: "Display is not good. Hell lot of drivers are needed to get any hardware work."

Mine was also defaulting to 4 or 8 bits, until Xsetup finally worked and I was able to get 32. Prior to it working, I reset hdparn " hdparm -c3 -m16 -X34 -d1 -u1 /dev/hda" . I don't know if this has any connection to being able to load 32 color or not.

Just found this link, which might be helpful.

http://homepages.e3.net.nz/~vicmc/Debian_on_an_Inspiron_1150.html

original here.