I hear linux mint is supposed to be good for beginners, it is a debian based OS with gnome desktop as standard... (although I have yet to try it)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjpPf9k3tQ4


Many people may also recommend Ubuntu as well for beginners, it comes with most of the drivers that you will need and install them automatically. Although I did find this more frustrating than when I had to change them to my hardware only to be thrown out again with Ubuntus frequent updates.

I would recommend downloading a few LiveCDs and trying them out.