I am thinking of installing Linux on my Dell Laptop. What is
the best Linux free version that I can download and install?

Almost all versions of linux are free or have a free version. Since you're talking about a laptop I would suggest looking towards some of the more desktop friendly linux distributions-- Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, or OpenSUSE. There are a lot of good linux distributions out there though, but we would need to know more about your specific needs and hardware before we can make an accurate recommendation.

A question like this is likely to result in you being snowed under with various opinions. The thing to do is hop over to Distrowatch. Use the page hit ranking, download a few and test drive them. Settle on the one you are most comfortable using and take it from there.

1 members found this post helpful.

To be fair, I have to say that all linux can be had free for the download. When you "buy" it somewhere, the purchase price is actually tech support to help you to set it up.

So, "best" is subjective, but right now, Ubuntu is very popular. There's a reason for this. It's easy to install and easy to use. You can even try it out without making changes to your computer, by putting it in your CD ROM and booting up with it. Play with it all you want, and when you're done, shut down your computer, take the disk out of the drive and reboot into Windows.

I've been playing with Ubuntu for about 5 years, and went all linux, all the time, with Ubuntu about a year ago.

Noticed your signature - Mandriva Spring 2010 ??? Are you using Cooker ?

It is too early for Spring version isn't it.

Distribution: Mandriva Spring 2010 / PClinuxOS 2009.2 / PCLXDE 2009

LOL, thanks for pointing that out Although one could argue that 2010 is also a tad early.

There is no best......

Take a look at http://distrowatch.com ...Anything in the top 5 or so on their "hit list" is a good place to start.

I think for a lot of us the choice is about whatever version we start our linux Life on, for me it was RedHat and I have moved to Fedora over the years because I am to mean to buy it.

I dont consider myself a real Linux power user but I seem to be able to get around Fedora, make it do what i want most of the time and find some good help online.

My advise is to install a few different distros and see which one you like. I would personally recommend (if you have the power in your laptop) to install them as VM's rather than straight onto your physical hardware. thats my 2 cents worth.

If you're new to linux I would recommend Ubuntu, It's not the best distro out there but It's easy to use and desktop friendly (good for use on laptop). Also you should check out http://distrowatch.com for comparisons and reccomendations

Ubuntu Linux is a good one to start with.......