I have tried out Ubuntu Linux. It had to be downloaded and burned to a CD first, but it installed well, including most of the drivers for my motherboard. It came up in 800 x 600 resolution. Everything seemed to work and I was able to successfully install Google Chrome as a second browser. My main problem was the video driver, which for my Nvidia card had to be done manually. I messed that up, causing the video to go blank after boot-up. I haven't yet reloaded Ubuntu yet, but I liked what I saw until that happened.

     A similar freeware linux that reputedly has better access to proprietary drivers like Nvidia is Mint. I've downloaded that but haven't got around to burning the install disk yet. I'll let you know.

     PC BSD is also a free download that needs to be burned and installed. It worked "out of the box" like Ubuntu and immediately gave me access to all my video capabilities, but I had more trouble downloading upgrades, and found that Chrome doesn't have a BSD version yet. However, it is fully functional and interesting to play around with.