# dell inspiron 8100

## jcmc2000

I am running Gentoo on a dell 8100, I have th 64meg ati radeon video card. I heard rumors that there may be a way to get 3D support on this card but haven't been able to find anything on how to do this. Does anyone out there know?

Second problem, I can't get apm to play nice. If I fn-esc it suspends, when I restore X locks up. I ssh'd to the laptop while this was happening and noticed that the X security file process is at 90% cpu usage, and the timestamp is behind, so my theory is this is part of the problem. If I suspend without X running everything works perfectly. I have compiled the kernel to use apm, not apic or apci, I saw enough posts not to make that misktake. 

third problem, does anyone know the steps to getting this modem to work it is the combo 3com 10/100+56k modem card built into the laptop. I have read conflicting stories as to whether this card will work.

Now for the praise, Gentoo kicks ass, there isn't a better distrobution out there. Finally there is a distro that cas excellent package management, mixed with the best features from debian, free bsd, and lfs. I was going the lfs route because mandrake and redhat suck, and debian is too outdated for me....but I lack the skills to create the great administration tools that gentoo provides. GREAT JOB!!!

thanks for the help

jason

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## geders

I am not sure about Radeon 7550 support in Linux, but I am pretty sure its out there...try ATI forums or (even better) the delltalk forums...the guys there really know the ins and outs of the 8100...

I have the 8100, and I had to disable any sort of APM or APIC to get the machine stable (in all linux distros).  Actually, it was always APIC (or whatever that acronym is) that caused problems, but I always wack APM as well, since I got tired of reconfiguring everything...

Actually, I have the 3com combo card, and it works perfectly.  Well, I have never used the modem.  But, the networking portion works great.  The driver is in the kernel, just look in the 3com section and use the module that has the description of "Vortex Boomerang" or whatnot...

I also give great praise for Gentoo!  This system rocks, and I am so happy they included only gcc 2.95.3 as default...after 2.95.3 a lot of old fortran code is broken, and since a lot of our software is still written in that crap, its always a pain to get this older, more stable compiler!

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## mb

 *jcmc2000 wrote:*   

> I heard rumors that there may be a way to get 3D support on this card but haven't been able to find anything on how to do this. Does anyone out there know?

 

hi...

check out http://dri.sourceforge.net/... your card (ATI Rage (Pro) Mobility) is in the list of supported cards.... i also got this card in my old IPC notebook, but never tried this out...

the dri user guide says: 

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> # ATI Rage 128, supported on Intel x86, AMD and Alpha:
> 
>     * Rage Fury
> ...

 

i would give it a try.....

#mb

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