First of all, I'd like to state that I am a complete to the Linux world, and that this is my first attempt at an install.

About my system:
AMD 650mhz
MSI K7 Pro motherboard
640 MB RAM
Radeon 32 MB (PCI) TV Out card. (This is not the 'all-in-wonder')
Sound Blaster Audigy (I don't think this is important, but hey, I'm the n00b here!)

I've got three hard-drives installed:
C: 7.86 Gig
D: 9.53 Gig
E: 60 Gig

I had a pretty nice 19" monitor that I couldn't afford to replace when it blew out on me, so I purchased this really cool Radeon card with TV out so I can use it with my 52" TV. It took a little bit of haggling to get it to work properly in Windoze, so I was expecting some complaints from Linux.

Everything seemed to be going according to plan. I selected the Radeon (generic) card in the drop-list (my exact card wasn't listed) and continued on. I ran into problems when I got to the post-install and had to choose my monitor. I selected one and hit the 'test' button. The screen went blank and after a couple of seconds, was covered in scrolling horizontal and vertical bars. (I was sort of expecting this behaviour, so I had set my logon to the text-mode figuring that I would have to tinker some to get it to work properly.)

Now, being a n00b in Linux, I'm not even sure where to go to see if things have been initially set-up right or not. Also, (possibly related) when I type startX I'll get an error message and the system will hang for a minute or so and then give me my command prompt back after printing a couple more error messages. (Was too tired last night to right them down, but I'll boot Linux back up and check).

If anybody could point me in the right direction for this, it'd be appreciated greatly. I've searched everywhere I can for help with this, and can't quite seem to get it sorted out.

-thanks in advance.