Hi Mike,
this distro is working well for me. It boots into the GUI automatically at the first boot, without any additional setup.
Please keep some basic steps:
1) use some fast SD card, at least 8MB/sec., I'm using 2GB SD, or 4GB SDHC class 10
2) wipe the card with the SD formater utility with "Format size adjustment" set to ON
3) create the SD card from the image file with Win32Disk, or other utility
4) place the SD card into the Raspi and plug the power, it will boot to the GUI.
Regards, Jan.