Red Hat 9 running with mixed results and mixed feelings.

[vpamicue]

I use Mandrake 9.2 with no problems I have a NVidia GeoForce card. But there are club members with Radeon cards, up to 9200 that work fine. There is an ATI Radeon (unidriver ) for OpenGL on there web page that works just fine for full 3D acceleration.
Also if you purchase Mandrake Discovery it comes with a Radeaon 3D and NVidia drivers fully accelerated.
With Linux it is a good Idea to check the Web pages of the Cards distributer as NVidia ATI and Matrox all have #D drivers on there sites.
S3 ,Trident and IBM 3D graphics chip support is built in to most dists.

[vpamicue]

Well the thing is I have used the following dists for Linux, RedHat 7.2-9.0. Caldera 2.8=3.2, TorboLinux and Debian all have some great features, but all lack one thing, simple no nonsence install that recognizes your hardware and works. But that is where Mandrake 9.2 is different it does solve your problems, I purchased the cheapest dist from Mandrake the 9.2 Discovery Disks ( 39.00 US). ALL ATI and NVidia 2D and 3D accelerated modes are supported and work and configure automaticlly, even OpenGL is set up and working perfectly. You do not even have to set up network connections they work perfectly. Mandrake is the only dist I will suggest to newbies, it does what it says it will. Mandrake even includes recovery tools on CD and Uninstall program in Mandrake Control Centre.
Not all linux dists are the same Mandrake is the closest to usable Desktop out of the box. It install sets up and configures as good as Windows. It comes with OpenOffice 1.1 for Office2000 Word Exel and Powerpoint compatability that works 100% you can even set it to only save files as .doc .xls or what ever.
You can download a free version from there web site but the graphics drivers are what you pay for so they are not included (3D OpenGL compatability that is, the 2D driver works great.