Is the hardware detection capabilities of the LiveCD the same or about the same as that of the installation DVD?
Reason why I wonder is I have a desktop with an nVidia graphics card which Ubuntu has been giving me trouble with (works fine with 7.10 but nothing newer… go figure).
I have had better luck with openSUSE’s hardware detection 2x now and was thinking of giving it a “three time a charm” opportunity but as the computer is being used by the rest of the family I want to test it out with a LiveCD first.
Really vesa is the way to with any trial involving a nvidia card. You can only get that up and running once installed. Your main concern will be your main hardware. The dvd and live cd are not the same. I can boot a live cd and the wireless will just work, but from a dvd install it needs setting up after install. But the cd will give you a good feel for how you pc will go at install.
You may have to use the vesa option on a dvd install to have a graphical install, I have had to use text mode before now when even vesa didn’t work. It’s a bit grim but you get there and where there is a will there is a way.