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.

If the Linux from Scratch install doesn't go well for you, I would suggest trying Gentoo.  While it will take a little while to get it up and running, I bet that you will be able to get all of the features of your hardware working as long as there are compatible drivers available.  The reason I suggest Gentoo is the package management system, portage.  I don't know how Linux from Scratch deals with package management, but portage works great.

I've had 13 different versions installed on various boxes here at one time, using a multi-boot loader to select them.  It was quite the experience to get them all to work with all the different hardware involved, especially video cards.  I'm afraid to go out and try to buy any video cards as a result.  

Anyway, I now only have 2 Linux vendors installed on 10 or 11 boxes, in different versions - openSUSE and PCLinuxOS.  All of the others I tried out were lacking something in the way of configurability, updating, downloading software, adding or changing hardware, whatever.

Many of the ISO's I downloaded wouldn't even install on most of my hardware, you know, sorry guys I don't have CPU's made just last week and the video card you personally chose for all your own stuff when you wrote the code..............

So what are you gaining that you wouldn't have with a fresh install of Windows 7?



I've installed Linux distros before, I couldn't deal with the utter lack of support of most things without a long of dicking around.

No love for Ubuntu?

I lost my Vista instillation disk and was stupid and formatted before I made sure I had it...

It's free so until I get a friend and MS to buy me a copy of 7 its linux for now.

I'll keep it and just dual boot, though linux sucks ass for recording music and gaming which I do a lot.

LFS doesn't do package management; the idea is to build a distribution completely from scratch, compiling all of the packages, writing all of the configuration files etc.  It's not really intended to result in a really useful desktop operating system (although you could make it that with enough effort), so much as it's intended to be a learning experience.





Mint is based on Debian and Ubuntu, which use the apt package management system.  While apt isn't without its detractors, it's generally considered to be quite robust.  





I'm not ruling out trying Gentoo; I'd like to try a lot more distros (as well as a couple of BSDs).  I'm currently most curious about Slackware though.  I think that will be next, after I finish LFS (and maybe get into Beyond LFS).





http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/





 

About $130, for starters







But I didn't intend for it to be a Windows replacement.  I like playing with different Linux distros, and I need a system to install LFS from.  And Mint seems, so far, to be far better in the support department than most.





 

I installed Ubuntu and had 2 problems.  It wouldn't work with my network card (Netgear WG311) and it didn't work with my dual monitors.  I would set it up for dual monitors, but every time I reboot it would mirror the monitors, which I had to change every single time.  If there was a linux version that worked with my network card I would be willing to try it.  I spent about 10 hours messing with ndiswrapper and I just couldn't figure it out so I gave up.

I ran it for a while... it was OK, but it was not as stable as I would have liked and it still didn't fully support my video card.  My Debian installation took a lot more work to get working like I wanted it, but I think that I was happier with the final result.



 

I've never found a distribution of Linux that wouldn't install on basically every X86 processor and video card made in the last decade.  Your story is very strange.

The BSDs, OTOH...  but their compatibility problems run the opposite of what you describe –– they don't support new hardware.

Vector Linux is really nice.

Slackware based.

I picked up Windows 7 for $30 through their student/university deal they were doing last year.



 

Mint is an Ubuntu spin-off.

There is a difference between "install", and "disable acpi and install in text mode, use the CLI package updater with third party repository to get working video drivers".



See Fedora 10 and ATI 4800 cards.



 

Ubuntu and Mint are good desktop distros. However, I have never understood why people feel the need to compile every package ala gentoo and linux from scratch. Most applications see no to minimal performance gain. Enlighten me please.





-Foxxz

Gentoo had binaries if you wanted to use them. Like say, when you want OO2.0 on your P-II.




 

What about this one?

http://www2.mandriva.com/

Back in the day they had something called WineX for Linux that would run windows games by natively installing DirectX libraries into Linux.  It was extraordinarily slow to start a game with it, but worked surprisingly well once it was spooled up and running.  Performance was equal to Windows.  Problem is that it didn't always work.

Installing is one thing...running at full capability is quite another.  Getting video drivers to run right when I dabbled with this stuff was interesting, to say the least.  Usually I'd get them running then they'd just die at some point with no common occurrence to indicate a point of failure.  This could only be remedied with a format and re-install.

I've been running mint at home for close to a year now I think. I love it.

Its what Ubuntu should have been to begin with.

ATI 4800 cards are brand new –– that's the opposite of the problem he claims to have encountered.  I suspect that problem will be fixed with whatever the next Fedora release happens to be.

I used Mint until they went all libtard on their blog. I don't need that shit when I am looking for news about updates on my OS. Went to Ubuntu for awhile but now I am back on XP for gaming purposes.