wanna put me some Open Source goodness on a 120 gig. tell me what i should get that would run good on a dual core w/4 gigs of ram and an ati HD 3850

opensuse 10.3 64 bit, or u can wait for opensuse 11.0 64 bit with kde, that would be super cool

Fedora 9, fresh out the oven

Go Try:

Ubuntu 8.10
Fedora 8 or 9
openSUSE 10.3
gOS Rocket 2.0.0.0 (gnome)
opensolaris200805

They are all LiveCDs, so you can play with them before you even install. You should be able to figure out what you like the most...

Variety is the key to choice!!!!

Gracious God, you have asked the "forbidden question"
What can you expect from me: openSUSE, of course.
I suggest the 32 bit edition, fewer complications (sorry snakeeyes).
Try Parsix as well: Debian Proper at its very best:

http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=04794

what about linux mint? is it any good?

It is an Ubuntu derivative. They say it is good. I have never tried it.
Do try everything that inspires you, that is the secret to making up your own mind.
At DistroWatch every distro has an entire page, with all sort of links.

Ubuntu 8.04 or Fedora 9

OpenSUSE is great, but good luck with the ATI card. Their binary drivers are a pain to install, and every distro. in existence only includes the community-made drivers which support basic 2D and resolution change.

The only time in my life I had an ATI card (because there were no drivers for OSx86) I had to use Kanotix.
Kanotix doesn't have much life these days. Parsix on the other hand is the Kanotix successor which is being actively developed. So he shouldn't have problems with that (still needing a Kanotix script to install the ATI driver, though).

Well i got Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop edition and i have 2 problems, ONE/ the ati card obviously (no acceleration) and TWO/my Linksys wireless pci card (model WMP54G - Wireless-G PCI Adapter) is being seen but wont see any wireless networks...no idea as to WHY....

Id like to stick with ubuntu so if anyone could offer help with this (cause im a linux n00b...well sorta lol) id appreciate it

Sorry I can't help you there, not because I don't like Ubuntu (which is true anyway), but because I can't solve the Ubuntu issues myself, or it is very time consuming. Thus an Ubuntu install stays on my HD for no longer than a couple of hours.

Arch Linux is a great distribution. It will take a little bit of reading at first, but it is so simple and easy to administer once you have it running. It is also a rolling release distribution, so you never have to "upgrade."

Grav3Mind is a self confessed "n00b"
I'd never recommend Arch Linux to a "n00b"
Then rather Debian, a lot easier and very rewarding from many points of view.

lol well atleast i was honest XD.

Indeed