Wait, I don't get it. Why buy a Mac and single boot Linux? I've used OpenSuse, Ubuntu (including gnome, KDE and XfCE environments), Xandros, Mandriva and PC Linux, and they don't use up too much hard drive space. How new is the Mac? Seriously, why not just dual boot and use the Mac partition to store all of your data? Then you can boot from OS X and bring it in. Plus, you'll know for sure that this is a hardware problem.
Way to have two pages of bickering over this.