What is the best linux operating system for a newbee to learn??

is it lindows or mandrake or is there anything else???

I gues it depends on what you want to do with Linux. If you really want to learn the internals of the OS, slackware might be a good option. But if you want to get things done for you without bothering to know what is happening behind the windows , mandrake, lindows -> linspire or suse might be good options. well... this is what i felt after trying various distros but i might be wrong.
all the best

my first distribution was suse....but also redhat is not bad for a beginner!

If you truly want to learn how to do things I think Slackware is the choice...as I'm told....haven't gotten around to mucking with it yet....

Red Hat, SuSe, Mandrake....all ones that you can USE without much, if any, tinkering....so if you want an OS that you can set up and use right away I'd say one of these three...

...but if you want to learn then probably a distro like Slack is the way to go...

Here's my analogy...people who learn how to drive a manual transmission car can easily pick up an automatic transmission without much learning curve, if any....but the same isn't true the other way around...

Slack = manual trans
RH, SuSe, Mandrake = auto trans

I think debian is the best distribution, but it might not be for the weak.
The new installation system is really good, but you may need to seek help if you need to get your whizz-bang hardware working. It has loads of software to install and the greatest package manager in existence so far.

I would suggest Mandrake as a fine installation candidate as it is one of those that claims to detect hardware well, and it uses a graphical interface for the installation. Some find it is more trouble than it is worth, and if you have old hardware, you might want something simpler.

I quite like slackware, but it does not have a large amount of software ready to use. It is a bit simpler than debian and mandrake, so if you're editing configuration files you will find it really nice.

I might also suggest something like Knoppix, which is the most excellent linux system in the known universe, and if you like it, you can easily install it on your hard drive, but it is pretty huge.

For a newbie, debian is the best, but for a windows-convert, mandrake is probably most suitable.

Try what you like! One day soon you will be tailoring a distribution of your own. That's how great Linux is.

I'd vote for Fedora for learning - the most reliably sucessful installer and there's lots of documentation for Red Hat. Mandrake and SUSE have nonstandard configurations which make the tools work but can cause problems if you want to tinker; this is probably true of Lindows as well. Debian and Slackware are for advanced users, and you may struggle with getting your machine set up.

It's pretty normal to start with one distribution and switch to another later as you get more confident and have a better idea of what you want, so pick whichever seems easiest and go from there.

I had great success installing Gentoo. The documentation takes you step by step, and it really helped me learn about the whole kernel compiling process. I have, however, used Redhat, Mandrake, and Debian before.

I liked the nuts and bolts approach of Gentoo.

read this:

http://www.distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

This is my fourth day with Linux - I'm using the Mandrake 10.0 distro.

I have DEFINITLY learned a lot in just these four days - but it has taken some determination. Mandrake is so bloated with stuff, that it can be hard for a beginner to sort out what is needed and what is just extra stuff thrown in. I can say that its a good place to start, but I will soon be moving to something like Debian or Slackware.

I switched to Mandrake 9.2 from Winme a couple of weeks ago.At work I see mostly Windows and some Macs and Unix/Linux.I dont know about the other distros but MDK9.2 installed easy and I was surfing the web with Konqueror right away.I also like the KDE gui.Im having a tough time figuring out the RPM software download thing though.Genesee's ditrowatch link is good,thanks!

Slackware is the best for learning Linux. However, if you want something that "just works", SuSe is a good choice.