Installing LinuxMint

[ohioiom]

Hello,
First of all, I am not computer literate and I am a newbie, but I can find my way around with a little help. I think I will be asking a lot of questions in the future.
I have been looking at different linux distros, which I put onto my laptop, not all at the same time,I hasten to add, eg. Suse,Knoppix,Ubuntu etc. and I have come to the decision that 'Linuxmint main edition' is the one for me.
I would like to install it on my desktop, but have had all sorts of problems with all the distros, it would appear to be a graphics problem, none of the distros would open up via live disc onto my desktop unless the option 'graphic safe mode' was selected and if I tried to install any, as a dual boot system I would nearly lose everything, incl. WinXP. My system is:-
AMD Athlon(tm) 64x2 Dual Core Processor 4800+2.50GHz
4 Gb RAM Win XP Pro SP2
Master disc 160 Gb/ slave disc 120 Gb I would like to install mint on the slave disc now, to save having any more heart attacks.
The Motherboard(which I think is the problem) is a:- Gigabyte S-Series GA-M68SM-S2.
Chipset:- NVIDIA Geforce7025/nForce 630a (Has anyone had problems with this motherboard in the past)
I found a linux driver for the motherboard, but after downloading , I couldn't open it:-
NVIDIA_LINUX_x86-169.09-pkg1
nvidia-xconfig-1.0.tar GZ file.
I am sure that someone will have the answer to my problems and point me in the right direction, but in "Stupid people language please"
Thank you in anticipation.

[NoClue!]

I have a geforce 7050 board with an amd be2300 low power setup. Very few distros will boot even in safe graphics mode, mint and mandriva 08 have been the only ones so far. Mint installed flawlessly from safe graphics mode with the correct driver.

[ohioiom]

Thanks for your input NoClue, I am sure that the driver is my problem, as I haven't had any more response regarding my original post, I will just have to surf the web and try and find the answer.
Kind regards

[jbaerbock]

Make sure you also post this on http://www.ubuntuforum.org and look around there since Mint is Ubuntu based a lot of the same solutions apply.

[NoClue!]

Perhaps you misunderstood me. If mint will boot in safe graphics mode then the correct driver will be installed during the installation automatically.