hello, i also have a dell optiplex gx260 (1 gb memory) and mint 8 runs fine - however i had to do some settings
1st in bios i had to put video memory to 8mb instead of 1 mb
second i installed from live cd - after you have installed from the desktop - before you reboot you have to change grub2
(problem is with the intel onboard video card - new driver has a problem) (in mint 7 this worked out of the box) but since latest kernels driver has a problem - the new driver will be included in the upcoming version in april 2010 but until then you can solve it as follows
boot from live cd until desktop appears - click install button
make sure while you install that you have an internet connection (wired or wireless) so updates can be retrieved while installing
let the computer do a soft reboot at the end (soft reboot should work normally) - once desktop appears again do the following
you have to modifify grub2 and put in the parameter: nomodeset
open the terminal and type
Code: Select all
gksudo gedit /etc/default/grub
add following to this line
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset"
save file
close
and then
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sudo update-grub
then everything runs fine
see also in forum
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 9&start=15