I am making the switch to Linux (again) so I downloaded the latest version of Ubuntu (13.10) and proceeded to install it. Once installed I opened up firefox and tried to go to www.nvidia.com but I was stymied when I pressed the "n" of "nvidia" and my computer froze. I rebooted and tried again with the same effect. I thought maybe 13.10 was just unstable so I tried 13.04 but the same thing happened. At this point I decided to try Linux Mint 15 so I downloaded it and got to the Live Desktop. I clicked on "Install Linux Mint" and now my computer has locked up again. Does anyone have any idea what could be wrong here? I have had Ubuntu installed before and it worked flawlessly so I don't know what could have changed.

My specs:

Core i7 3.02Ghz

nVidia GTX 580

8GB RAM

1TB HDD

Are you sure it actually froze? Did you try going to a TTY console (Ctrl-Alt-F1)? I've pretty much never seen Linux freeze, unless it's a kernel panic or serious memory issue (and at that point you're doing something wrong).

Basically, if you're having trouble with both 13.10 and 13.04, it's probably not Ubuntu that is at fault, but rather a driver issue (likely Nvidia?) or it didn't actually freeze and you mistook it for that.