I am an artist living in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, UK. 

I downloaded Mint 16 Mate ages ago but couldn't get it to install on my desktop computer, so I tried Wary Puppy, then Linux Lite 1.08.  I also tried Precise Puppy and PCLinux OS on my laptop after removing Windows Vista.   I thought PCLinux was a bit too similar to Vista so then I tried installing Mint on the laptop and it worked and I really liked it.  I tried again on the desktop HP but got the black screen again.  I got a book from my local library, read one line -"... Hit F6 for compatibility mode" so I did that and SUCCESS!  I now have Mint on both machines and no Windows whatsoever - I obliterated XP yesterday!

Mint is excellent!

 I am now using Mint 17 Mate - it's even better than Mint 16!