Also try some other live CDs for PPC. There is a PPC version of Ubuntu that work work well most likely, though Yellowdog is the most common one because of the PS3 support. Since you have 512mb of RAM, just about any live CD/DVD should work just fine for testing. If you are getting resolution problems, you should edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file (if your chosen distro uses Xorg) and make sure that it recognizes your monitor's settings properly. You can do this in a live CD as well, but instead of restarting just restart X (usually the key combination is ctrl-alt-backspace) or log out and log back on. Also, about the eye candy, both Gnome and KDE are very customizable, just check out www.gnome-look.org or www.kde-look.org for some skins/icons/backgrounds. I use Ubuntu on my desktops and I am pretty satisfied with my wide variety of visual options, though don't expect your CPU/graphics combo to run compiz or beryl anytime soon :-D Good luck!