I'm posting this from my shiny new Mint Linux installation. The entire process, from downloading the ISO to first boot, probably took a bit over an hour.
This is the first distro I have found that works with my video card (ATI 3850). Previous versions either would not would not install the X server at all, or would not run at higher resolutions. Mint worked at 1920 x 1200 out of the box, and enabled all the snazzy window effects after I told it to install the ATI driver. The video isn't perfect though; it's not quite as sharp as it is in Windows, and there are red and green tinged areas in the text.
Youtube videos play with no problems, of course (listening to a music video now). I haven't given it a thoroughgoing thrashing yet, but so far, I'm happier with Mint as a desktop OS than I have been with any other distro. Mint is intended to be a very complete and very user-friendly distro, and so far it has not disappointed.
Ironically, I installed the easiest distro I could find in order to create the hardest. I'm going to be starting a Linux from Scratch build this weekend, using this installation of Mint as the source. I haven't done anything nearly this ambitious with Linux yet, so it should be interesting.