I've just installed Mandrake 10.1 Community from PC World's December DVD cover disk onto my Dell Dimension 8250.
Dell Dimension 8250 P4 2.66GHz/512k
Retail Creative SB AUDIGY 2
4xDVD/CDRW Combo, 120GB IDE Hard Drive
128MB ATI Radeon 9700 TX
Broadcom BCM V.92 56k Softmodem
Logic3 Rumble Pad USB Joystick
After defraging my default single windows partition I let Mandrake resize approx. 8 GB to install on.
It recognised all the hardware except the softmodem and installed the appropriate drivers/modules. It dual booted (using LI-LO) between XP without problem or needing any other configuration.
I'm finding my way back around Linux after a 3 year break, so I can't be too detailed but it seems stable and the included games have sound, I haven't tried to play DVD's, etc; yet, as I've been more interested in re-learning linux.
The only problems I've found to date are:
Trying to compile a compatable driver for the Dell BCM modem (or an alternative Intel 536EP Hardware modem I bought for £10 from Maplin). The available source codes appears to have been written for earlier kernals and/or gcc compilers, but it could just be me
The boot process occasionally hangs when/after detecting the USB ports if the joystick is plugged into one of the back-pane USB sockets, it seems to boot ok if plugged into a front socket, but now I've recognised the problem I leave it unplugged until required.