After some time Compiz becomes more of a pain than a must have. I seriously fail this logic where distro creators are adapting to the Eye candy is king approach.
Mandriva is a good choice but I've found some folks asking some weird questions about Software installation Management on it. Haven't tried SuSe as Much as I would have wanted to so can;t comment there.
The reason I said Mint is because of its default contents and it doesn't look bad at all. It saves you quite a bit of work you would have to do on Ubuntu or any of the other distros. Another Distro you could consider is Sabayon.
Now if you are also into the habit of experimenting and doing insane experiments then yes you could try Arch Linux on those configurations. As long as you follow the Beginner Guide Word to Word you should be absolutely fine. Although I wouldn't recommend it, its definitely one of the fastest ways to learn a bit more in Linux.
Mandriva is dumb, though it has good hardware compatibility. But the point of using linux is to learn it too. OpenSUSE 11 KDE4 is buggy, so dont install it unless u wish to upgrade KDE 4 after install. Fedora 9 is somewhat unusual this time.
Ubuntu IMO is best for newbie who like to learn few things too.
Personally I still think you should go for MInt , but thats my Opinion and I haven't used Mint alot anyway. Just install one of the recommended ones here and you could always change .
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