I recently upgrades from an ATI 9600 Pro to a BFG 6600 GT, and tried installing linux. I've done a couple installs before, so I know a bit, but I'm still pretty new to this. Anyway, I first tried installing Suse 9.3 Pro, but upon trying to startx, I just got colored lines all over my screen. I then tried with Kubuntu, which gave me a similar problem, and Slackware would just give me an error message. However, I tried a Ubuntu live cd, and it would get me into X fine. I don't really know what to do. Any help is greatly appreciated.

The live cd was probably using vesa as the driver to your card.

It should work with the nv driver or vesa without 3d.
To get 3d acceleration download the official Nvidia driver from here:http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_d..._1.0-7676.html
Make sure you read the how to on that page.

and install that.

You'll need to edit your xorg.conf found in /etc/X11/

Make sure your know your monitor specs prior to editing (vert & horiz refresh....ect)