There are more distros (short for "distribution") out there than Baskin Robins has flavors! Choosing one is not all that difficult as you will see in a moment. Actually, that is the beauty of open source. You can take what you like, modify it for your need and redistribute it. As a result, just about every hobby or pasttime seems to have a specific distro created mainly for it.

Some distros or "flavors" may be cut out for people with some experience with Linux while others are developed to make getting into Linux easy. There is really no "dumbed down" or beginner's version of Linux, only varying degrees of user friendliness for those who have never tried Linux. If you are so inclined, you can always tinker under the hood no matter which distro you have installed. If you simply want an operating system that works for you, then forget that there is a "hood" to tinker under, and forget about such things as command lines as you have not needed to use a command line for years to do things in the mainstream distros mentioned below.

Never fear, all commonly available versions of Linux have a Graphical Users Interface! If you feel at home with the desktop on a Windows or Apple computer, you will not have any problems in Linux.

Following, are some of my choices for just about everybody interested. I am not discussing them in any order of preference. I will discuss general items which pertain to all distros following the discussion of what are probably the most popular and beginner friendly ones.

Linux Mint is a very user friendly distro. If you have a laptop, it may be the one to try as it automatically looks for devices that will perform better using proprietary drivers such as Broadcom WiFi cards. In my experience, it even found my networked laser printer (it is a Brother, not all brands or models may provide the same ease) and installed an open source driver automatically. Note: you should have the laptop (or WiFi capable desktop) connected to the outside world via Ethernet so Mint can download the WiFi drivers if needed. It will ask if you wish to install the proprietary drivers. Linux Mint is actually built on Ubuntu mentioned next.

Another all around firendly distro is Ubuntu. I guess I would not be wrong if I said it may be the most popular distro around. If you have developed a liking for a particular Desktop Environment, you can find different "DE flavors" of what I jokingly call the 'buntu brothers. Ubuntu uses the GNOME (pronounced "Gee-nome") DE. Kubuntu uses KDE ("K" Desktop Environment), Xubuntu uses a fairly lightweight and resource friendly DE called XFCE. XFCE may be lightweight, but it is far from lightweight when it comes to performance.

openSUSE is a community driven project sponsored by Novell. It is among the very first distros to bring GUI friendliness to Linux. It was my introduction to Linux many years ago.

There are several others, but the above mentioned are among the favorites it seems.

Installing applications is a snap. Each distro has a built-in application for finding and installing software (you can also install off of CDs, etc.) Each distro maintains what is known as a repository. That is where updates and applications are kept. Each distro seems to have a different name, but the common theme is that it is easy to do. Also, if you installed, say, Ubuntu which uses GNOME as the DE, but you see an application you want to try which begins with a "K", know that the "K" means that it is written for KDE. Never fear, however, the installation utilities know to download and install anything it needs so your "K" application will happily run on your GNOME desktop.

Linux has no registry!!!! This means that if you don't like a program and want to get rid of it, you can simply delete it off the hard drive (usually). There are some exceptions if you use programs that are made to work together. Oh, since Linux has no registry, you do not have to worry about the registry getting corrupted.....ever....

One more distro I want to mention is Puppy Linux. If you have an older computer which no longer runs Windows or it has an old version of Windows which you cannot get software, or you want to help somebody be able to get either online or back online with an old computer, Puppy Linux may be just the thing. It is fully functional, just does not have a ton of bells ans whistles. Having said that, I was very impressed with the versions of Puppy which I have tried.

Please note that I am mentioning some of my personal favorites and I have nothing against any distros that I have not mentioned. Just because I did not mention it does not mean that I do not like it; it is simply that these seem to be the most popular among people starting out with Linux.

I will be adding more here and cleaning up my rambling as time allows.