I've had some unpleasand trouble with Mandrake, after the install it won't boot to GUI cause the X-Drake (I think) interface keeps crashing.  I've got it working a few times but then I still have trouble with it crashing on shut down and other bugs.  I'm about to try Red Hat but hate to here it didn't work for you.  Did it give you the choice of using Lilo as the boot loader?  Works great on my computer haven't used Grub.  I am really pleased with http://www.lycoris.com/.  Only install program I've seen that lets you play Solitare while it's installing.  Haven't used it much yet but seems like a good product all in all.