Linux mint 7 help

[jack_the_linux]

hello

I am some what new to the world of Linux and I had gotten a dell dimension 4500
from a family member, I put in it about 1024 MB of memory, also i put in a NVIDIA GeForce MSI FX5600, at first i just had the graphics card and was running the dell standard 512MB of memory, and i had burned a Linux Mint Iso CD and when i loaded it up i would get past the boot screens and the screen would be black with just the mouse in the middle and it would freeze. now i said "the damn thing needs more Memory most likely" and i had a few good sticks of memory around so i got it up to a gig, and it worked fine, i was able to get in to the OS and everything, so i said "I like it" and I installed it. i reboot and boom, it did the same thing, it will freeze with the mouse in the middle of a black screen after it boots. so i said ok I will try the CD out again, and now the CD dose the same thing. it will also freeze, so now the hard drive install will freeze and the CD will freeze after I got the CD to boot up once. any help on this problem will be thank.

thank you.

[reed9]

It's probably an issue with your graphics card. Have you been able to install the proprietary nvidia drivers or are you using the open source nv driver?

[jack_the_linux]

I have been using the open source nv drivers.
This may sound stupid but how would I get the proprietary drivers for nv installed on mint?

[reed9]

If you can manage logging into the GUI, there is a restricted drivers manager.
Michael Larabel | Ubuntu Restricted Drivers Manager

You may be able to login normally and avoid the freezing up using the generic vesa driver. (It has a lot of limitations, but will at least basically work with almost any graphics card.) To use the vesa driver, you need to pass the xforcevesa option to the GRUB bootline. Here is info on how to do that.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions

If you're unable to get a GUI interface, from the login screen, hit CTRL+ALT+F2 to get to a console login. Here is some help for how to install the nvidia drivers from the console.
..:: Installing the NVIDIA Display Driver in Linux Mint ::.. Dushan888- Technology & FOSS for Humans

EDIT: Though most this stuff is for Ubuntu, Mint is very closed based on Ubuntu and it should all be applicable.