Things I've learned so far...

1. Not very many distributions like my combination of hardware. Some of them don't have the right networking drivers. Some of them kernel panic if you don't type meaningless characters at the first install prompt. So far, only Gentoo has had much success, and I haven't even had complete success there.
2. My processor didn't much like my motherboard at first, either. Or maybe the other way around. I couldn't even get to POST until I updated the BIOS chip on the motherboard.