A graphics problem?

[tau.qwerty]

At first, I will have to admit that regardless of distribution I always had an overheating problem. Not so much on Linux Mint, but at Ubuntu it was a constant problem. Windows 7 is working fine though which led me to believe that it's a graphics card problem. I searched a lot but to no avail.

Especially after I went to All Settings > Details and saw the Overview near geaphics saying: Gallium 0.4 on AMD RV710, my suspicions seemed to be justified because I think that I have an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4500 Series (as Windows 7 informs me).

So I thought to post my questions here and let you - the wizards - solve it for me.

1) I think that I should install Linux Mint 14 "Nadia" - Xfce (64-bit) so as to have be more lightweight. Am I correct?
2) Do you know how to install the correct drivers? I don't understand that part very much (yes, I am a n00b...)
3) I think that flash player and pdf contributes to the problem. Is this just a graphics card problem or I have to do something else?
4) From your experience do you have any suggestions to make? I like Linux Mint 14 very much (Ubuntu is disgusting! Why so much purple? Are you serious?) and I believe that if I am to do something more serious (Arch, Chrunch Bang) I will have to have some more experience.

What do you have to say about that?

[homerscousin]

I can't solve your problems, but I can offer a couple thoughts. Your system runs Win 7 just fine, right? Well, you should be able to do the same with Linux. Sometimes it just takes a whole lot of learning. It's fun, mostly. AMD's proprietary video drivers can make a very big difference in performance. Let someone else tell you how to install. I have never owned an AMD video device.

Most important, my old and retired computer was a Pentium D dual core with one whopping gig of ram, slightly overclocked, and an Nvidia gt 220 card with the lesser ddr2 ram, 1 gb, installed. I ran Mint 13 cinnamon and I ran other distros that had compiz and they ran fine with the generic Linux drivers. So with hardware that is in the neighborhood of 6 years old, any desktop will work.

[tau.qwerty]

Thank you very much homerscousin! I like the username very much!