Hi, i have installed 2 different linux distro's on my computer, at the console everything looks fine, however once it goes into a graphical mode ie. the dist install program or X11, there are these pink distortions everywhere. now this card hasnt been used for a long time, but if i remember correctly that happened when i tried to run the card in 32bit color depth.
could this be a driver issue?
I am new to linux so im not really sure what to do. in most cases i have a hard time just installing linux and getting x11 to work with gnome.
The machine also freezes regularly in linux, something that i thought linux was supposed to be superior than windows in that regard.
any help or guidance would be appreciated.
also the install manual stops right at where i get screwed up and i cant find any more useful (i understand it) information.

I would try 24 bit and see if things look any better.

I used to run an Nvidia TNT Riva 64 with the "nv" driver. I'm pretty sure I had to run it in 24 bit mode. It worked well for years until it started to develop horizontal streaking across the screen in a sort of reddish/pinkish hue. I tried everything on that card and it turned out to be the hardware. The card's IC chips were going bad. There's nothing you can do except replace the card if that's what you are experiencing. It turns out this is common for Nvidia cards that were manufactured around 2000.

Also, you might try slowing down the refresh rate. Try running X-11 with the "vesa" driver too. This will cause the cpu to have to render the graphics. This isn't optimal, but it will tell you a bit more about what's going on. Like if the GPU is going on you 'cause vesa doesn't use it.

Let me know if you need help with any of this. I can tell you what parts of the xorg.conf or whatever you need to look at to do these things. Also, what distro are you using?

I haven't had a *operating system* failure in years with Linux. Lots of hardware failures (Man you name it and I've used it all the way into the ground: floppy drives, CDROMs, DVDs, graphics cards, several hard drives, displays, power supplies, sound cards, etc.) but *not* software. My stuff wears out because I use it all the time and never shut anything off.