I am new to Linux from Win*

I noticed there are many Linux distributions, which is good for a Windows user?

You should probably use gnome or kde for your desktop they are a lot like windows.

I have installed redhat 7.1 numerous times on different hardware and it always came up working out of the box.

I have also installed turbolinux on a few machines and it worked too.

You should be okay as long as you don't forget the address to this forum.

Different distros are aimed at different types of people. Red Hat is a good all round disto that is well supported by the community.

I also really liked the ease of Mandrake as my first distro. I tried Corel (don't have a good excuse why) also, but that's a bust unless you want a REALLY simple distro. It also seems that SuSE 7.3 is fighting it's way into the ring, so I hear.

mandrake for you my friend

SuSE 6.0 was the first Linux I was able to get a functional GUI. An o-o-o-o-old slackware disk set is lying around somewhere that installed easily enough a few years ago (96/97??) but at the shell prompt I was kinda lost.

<plug>I've bought Slack, Drake, RedHat and SuSE and by far (for me) the best 'out of box' experience for me was SuSE. Best documentation & manuals by far. It was a huge kick-start for me.</plug>

That being said, it is worth repeating that RH does have a larger user community, especially in North America. (Nod to dorward)

I found Mandrake to be the easiest distro to use, and the most bleeding-edge, but it's not very logically organized. I like RedHat the best. That being said, I'm still running Mandrake on my laptop because RedHat won't work on it. Also, I haven't tried SuSE yet.

I'll also add emphasis on not losing the URL to linuxquestions.org. I would have given up on Linux if this resource hadn't been here for me.