It depends on what your needs are. If you want to install Linux on an older PC for surfing & email, I'd check out Slax.

If you want something with a huge userbase that's bound to be able to offer you tech support, Ubuntu may be the ticket.

If you're looking for the easiest distribution for Windows users, Xandros is probably your best bet.

If you want something to install on a server within an organization, Redhat may be your best bet.

If you want to be impressed with the visual goodness Linux can offer, take a look at http://www.sabayonlinux.org for some XGL/Compiz goodness.

BTW, I originally used links for each of the names, but the wonderful comment system only allows 3 hyperlinks for some stupid reason.

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Take it from a South African - Ubuntu is pronounced, well, "Ooo-Boon-Two".

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I know this is not a very good reason, but I use Fedora Core at home because it's related to Red Hat, which is everywhere. I'm by no means a Linux power user yet, I'm stillmaking my way to that status, but I hope learnind FC helps me in the event of having to deal with a linux server at work.
I also like KDE better than Gnome (another lame reason), and Ubuntu (my other option) is primarily built on Gnome (I know about kubuntu, but the support is not same thing as the main distro.)
Support for Fedora Core is pretty good and fast. The community is not as large or sizzling as Ubuntu but it's still very large and active.

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oo-BOON-too - http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=ubuntu&gwp=13

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Oh, good, I've been pronouncing it right.

I've used Mandrake, Red Hat & Fedora, and Ubuntu, and Ubuntu has been the best by far. It installed on my laptop without difficulty. Upgrading to Dapper Drake (the latest stable release) messed it up, but the Ubuntu online community was very patient and helpful, and I soon got everything sorted out. I really love Ubuntu.

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I've been pretty impressed with Ubuntu, though I'd have to agree with Bill that there's room for more than one distro, depending on your needs. Slax is great if you want to run Linux from a thumbdrive, and it really does run smoothly on older machines, something that can't be said for all distros.

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I've used mandrake, SUSE, Ubuntu, Mepis, Fedora, Red Hat, and a variety of live distros- Knoppix, mepis, DSL, etc...

Ubuntu was by far the best for support and recognizing hardware, but Overall I prefered the ease of use of Mepis. Granted there was a little hand holding, but I'm no where near a power user and I found setting up grub with mepis to be easier than with any other distro. Mepis even supports my completely outdated 500mhz dell optiplex, while anything above "badger" (i think it is code named) ubuntu fails during the install.

Knoppix, hands down, best live cd or dvd.

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add another vote for ubuntu. it just works. but i agree, there is definitely room for more than one distro depending on your needs.

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Of the 7-8 distros that I've tried:

Best distro for someone who just wants to use a computer every day, and not mess around with a command line very much:
Ubuntu

Best distro for someone who wants to balance usability and customization, and perhaps run a server:
Fedora Core and Ubuntu -- pretty much a tie

Best distro for emergency repair/recovery of Windows or Linux PCs or data:
Knoppix

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started with suse 5.0 (worked, but updating did not)
then came debian potato which was a revelation
dissatisfied with the way the debian community treated beginners I began to look or other distros and found my happiness in ubuntu.

ubuntu is what I use, it is what I love. It certainly is what I recommend.

Most important: it works.

Their community is extraordinarily friendly unless I am in the channel ;)

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The question I'd like to have answered is specifically which distro has the best READ EASIEST hardware driver support. I'd like a distro that will recognize creative soundcards without having to mess all of that weird kernel rebuilding stuff. As a beginner, it is aggravating to have an OS that won't support sound without all kinds of strange voodoo stuff.

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I started with Slackware (14 years ago!), but just played around with it. Got serious in 1998 and installed Red Hat. When RH went strictly commercial, I moved to Gentoo (which is not exactly friendly, but optimizes great). Earlier this year, after several years of Gentoo accretion, an attempt to upgrade gcc went horribly wrong. Since I'd just installed Kubuntu on my laptop with *no* problems, I installed it on my AMD/nVidia desktop and I doubt I'll be going back.

The Ubuntu line has the "It Just Works" thing down cold. I'm up to 3 Ubuntu boxen at home (Intel laptop, AMD desktop and a repurposed G3 iMac), and two server installs at work (both Intel).

As for rescue/LiveCD, Knoppix has a slight lead over Ubuntu, but I find myself reaching for Auditor or SysRescue almost as often. (and I do need to build a chntpwd CD that will recognize SATA drives Real Soon Now)

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Um. Knoppix for ease of seeing something work. I tried red hat and Mandrake before getting that bit right.

Then I went for Kubuntu. It worked too. But I don't have time to go to the forums every other day and ask involved questions about this or that. So when my kubuntu installation started to do things I hadn't asked for, I went back to Windows full time. One day a real linux will come along, and I will poke arouind under the dashboard to mess with things just like I do now. But I haven't seen it yet.

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a couple of weeks ago i received from my dad one of his older computers(win 98 5 years old was good back then) and since i already had a laptop with xp i decided to try ubuntu and as a first time linux user it was great. it is easy to install and not that much different of an interface than windows plus it has some nice features that would be nice for windows(4 different desktop veiws). also the computer was not running so well on windows but now it work much faster.
i feel that if like me you are a first time user of linux ubuntu is the way to go.

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While I've played with several Linux distro's including Knoppix, Xandros, Linspire, Novell/Suse, Mandrake, etc, the only one I've ever found easy to use AND worth using was Ubuntu.

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I've always prefered Mandrake (though in the past I used RH or Slackware), it's the only one that both detected all of my old laptop's hardware AND by default had the right trackpad responsiveness (Ubuntu always seemed too responsive, even if I turned it down completely I'd go zooming across the screen.)

For LiveCDs I prefer Slax, it's nice and small for old systems, and has loaded great on several old boxes I've cobbled together or stumbled upon.

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From experience, it's Ubuntu all the way for me.

I started out with Fedora core, but I just couldn't get wireless working, and there was too much to mess around with. Installing flash was a pain!

Then along came the ubuntu family... What a relief! I started with Kubuntu, but I don't reccomend that for beginners. Plain old Ubuntu has much better support, and GNOME programs are just more common. KDE likes to use its own programs (all with a nae starting with K) where as GNOME uses very popular programs, like Gaim, Firefox, evolution, and a stellar collection of games (comes pre-installed with Ubuntu!).

But as you get into Linux, you may find KDE more to your tastes. It acts a lot like Mac. I have a small partiton for Kubuntu when I want it, but I still prefer Ubuntu.

But beyond the environments, the Ubuntu family of distros is some amazing technology. Hands down, Synaptic (Kynapti in Kubuntu) is the best way to download/install programs. Also, the Wiki on Ubuntu.com has loads of information that is written just for Ubuntu. Many problems are solved there! It makes the Windows/Mac transition a breeze.

Also, Ubuntu has an excellent Live CD, but it's not quite meant for use beyond testing the waters and installing. If you're unsure, just head to Ubuntu.com, get some free Live CDs shipped to you (I suggest the 3-pack, 1 x86, 1 PowerPC, 1 64-bit), toss it in your CD drive, reboot, and enjoy! However, it's slower than an OS optimized for such an application, but it is full-featured.

If you need a fast/low demand distro thats still powerful, go with Xubuntu.

Overall, most mainstream Linux distros will save you (and your computer) from suffering, but Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu, and Xubuntu are the logical choice for any purpose.

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I'd have to say Ubuntu too, if we're talking about Linux newcomers. I started using Linux at the start of this year and tried loads of distros. I avoided Ubuntu like the plague for the simple (and cynical) reason that everyone else in the world seemed to be using it, but I gave it a go in the end and have stuck with it ever since.

Mepis has great hardware detection but comes with KDE by default which, to be honest, I don't recommend for beginners. Fedora Core is a beautiful, polished distro but there are a few niggles there like getting multimedia to work. Ubuntu seems to do everything correctly first time, and makes installing software and keeping your system updated a breeze.

As for best Live CD, I generally only use those to check that a distro detects all my hardware. However, I've found SysRescueCD to be a fantastic tool.

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It's a bit like asking "What is the best car?". Everyone has their own requirements, and opinions about which is the best and why.

My opinion is use PCLinuxOS if you are a Linux newbie, and if you are a techhead that wants to learn how Linux works, the best you could choose is Slackware. Everyone should try Debian at some stage in their Linux career, and then decide that Ubuntu is better maintained and easier to work with.

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If you are a normal user or new to Linux or computing then I think Mandriva Linux is the best. It is easy to install and everything works out of the box. In version 2007 (currently at RC2) even 3D desktop will work out of the box.

If you are a power user that needs highly optimised system and you want all the control over your operating system then I think Gentoo Linux is the best for you. But be warned, you will have to configure a lot of things manually and you will learn a lot about Linux during the process.

For users somewhere in between I think Kubuntu and openSUSE are also a very nice choice.

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