Hi I’m a newbie to Linux and hoping to start with Mint 17.1. I’ve downloaded a live DVD, checked the MD5 and now ready to go. My computer is a custom built,
500 GB hard drive;
AMD Athalon 64x2 Dual Core 3800+ Speed 2 GHz;
1 GB DDR memory;
DVD writer; Samsung SH-S162L
Motherboard Asus, Tek 8 AN-VMCSM; Bios AMI 0506;
Windows XP Home SP3;
Display adapter NVidia Geforce 6150 on-board chip; (Driver 307.83);
Nvidia Network Bus Enumerator, (driver 5090);

I’ve heard that there are some installation problems with the Nvidia GPU drivers, so it will be interesting to see what happens.

p.s I started on this intro then lost it, goodness knows why. If it turns up twice. My apologies

Winehound

Welcome to LQ.

The Mint 17 release notes might help you with booting with Nvidia, if you run into problems. The relevant portion is about 3/4's of the way down the page.