If it were me, that 8.6GB partition is lookin' pretty sweet as a Linux sandbox if I was thinking about installing it on a hard drive. Fedora Core 4 was the last distro I installed and I know it was less than 3GB. Fedora also has a pretty simple installer called yum. Same sorta commands....

yum search <string> find something you might want
yum install <package> install something you do want
yum check-updates see if there's any updates
yum upgrade <package> update it

I would definately recommend Ubuntu
Here is the official website

It was created to be as user friendly as possible, it's easy to install, easy to use and there is very good user support avaliable.

Support options

1) Read the official wiki here which contains step by step guides for most common problems.

2) You can post your questions on linuxquestions.org here or sign up to the ubuntuforums.org here - you should get a response within 24 hours

3) Jump on the freenode irc server (irc.freenode.net) and join #Ubuntu - If you havn't used IRC before I suggest you learn if you want to use linux - You can get instant support from somne very smart people.

All the best with linux!

You said you were a techie wannabe. If you want to dive into Linux, then Slackware is the best choice. Why?

- Learn by experience. If you never do, you will never know. After your customary "one week of hell," you will emerge like thousands before you (including myself). When I installed Slackware last year, I knew only of Linux hard drive notation, a little bit about the directory structure, and rudimentary UNIX shell prompt. Now I know enough Linux to use my wireless router for wardriving.

- Hiding is the not the answer. "User friendly" distros make themselves user-friendly by hiding the nitty-gritty details. But what happens if your some hardware fails, causing random crashes? What happens when you've been attacked by script kiddies? Nothing but your knowledge of shell can save you then.

- Knowledge is power. User friendliness ultimately leads towards Windows--not the evil aspect but the powerless aspect. In Windows, you don't really have much control of what's going on. The whole point of using Linux *is* having that control, whether to do stuff Windows clearly wasn't built for (running a server), install where Windows can't ever fit (routers or old computers), or tweak to your heart's content--the fact is that Windows is suited ONLY for desktop computing while Linux can do just about anything that involves a CPU.