Swtching to another distro won't help, they al use the same XFree driver.
From what your saying, it sounds like your display configuration utility's are giving troubles, am I right?
I suppose that after installing whatever distro you have a nice X screen, only not accelerated, so install the detonator package and edit your /etc/X11/XF86Config:
Code:
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Japie's XFree86 setup."
Screen "Display1" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection
Section "Files"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/local/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"
FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/"
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "speedo"
Load "glx"
Load "v4l"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard1"
Driver "Keyboard"
Option "AutoRepeat" "500 30"
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
Option "XkbModel" "pc101"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor1"
VendorName "Philips"
ModelName "107E"
HorizSync 30.0 - 70.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 160.0
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard1"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA"
BoardName "GeoForce2 MX400"
Option "NvAGP" "3"
Option "CursorShadow" "on"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Display1"
Device "Videocard1"
Monitor "Monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection
If al is well, the only thing you have to change is `driver` in the `Device` section from nv to nvidia.
Further look at the `Module` section, you really need all off them to do something.
