what distros are compatible with an AMD X2 +3800?

and what arch is that card?

it's a 64. Look through http://distrowatch.com/

so its "IA64?"

i gave my friend mandrake 10.1 cause windows wasnt working on his new pc (he built) and so he wanted to try linux to see if it was windows or if it was his pc.

if we cant get that work do the the way its built. im going to download another distro (likely debian) and then install it on my pc (cause i dont like mandrake at all). i could then set it up infront of my friend and he could go home and do it. he also plans on buying cedega and giving it to me if i can get his pc working on linux and help him get going.

You want the AMD64 versions or alternatively the regular 32bit installs of any distro should work you just have to make sure it is installing a 2.6 kernel otherwise you will not get the best support for the hardware.

is there a version that can be installed on both my pent 4 and his AMD? (sorry, i stopped using linux when i really got into PC gaming. if he buys cedega though and gives it to me, ill get back into linux....aka: im a total newb again. i remember nothing and i couldnt find anything on that site..)

I have both PIV and AMD X2 3800 CPUs. I use Mandrake 10.1 and find them both working more than adequately.

I think there's a x86-64 bit distribution for Mandrake, but I think that's more for the AMD, you'll need a separate (ie., 32 bit) distribution for the PIV. At least, that's what I discovered when playing with Ubuntu live CDs.