liudr:
With my wife's laptop just died and she using mine, I would have to jump on some linux ship. Cr0sh, what version of linux do you recommend for a beginner. What I hate about unix is the need to know so many commands that I don't use everyday. I want something easy to use with good GUI.
I will say that, for my purposes, I'm looking for something other than Ubuntu. However, to get your feet wet with Linux, I think it might well be the best choice. Or, some other distribution based on Ubuntu, such as Mint. One thing you will want to bear in mind is that with Linux, you can choose from many different desktop environments. The 2 biggies are Gnome and KDE. Ubuntu, by default, comes with the Gnome desktop environment, except that in the latest release, they've stuffed in their own "shell" called Unity, instead of using the Gnome shell. I won't say "don't even bother", because you might find you like Gnome just fine. But do remember that alternatives exist, if you find that you hate it. I recommend installing the Kubuntu variant of Ubuntu, which is same in terms of system startup, which kernel, and all the base stuff, but it uses KDE applications instead of Gnome applications. Note also that you can run apps written using the KDE libraries and/or Gnome libraries, irrespective of which desktop environment you use. A lot of people get confused by this, which is unfortunate. I don't run either the Gnome or the KDE desktop. But I run KDE and Gnome apps.
You can, after installing the appropriate packages, switch between desktop environments. I don't use a desktop environment at all; I run a simple window manager, which suits my needs quite fine. If you don't like Gnome or KDE, you can try Xfce, Fluxbox, Fvwm, or one of many other window managers.
Also, don't forget that you can download, burn, and boot from a whole raft of "Live" CDs, so you can try different distributions without even having to install. I don't know for sure how informative that really is for picking a distribution, because a lot of the things which differentiate them are more "under the hood" stuff, which you really won't mess with much using a live CD anyway. But you can at least give Gnome and KDE desktops a trial run before installing one or t'other.