Probably Debian/Ubuntu users feel more like home holding their Maemo device, still with virtual OS'es try-fail cycles becomes super easy. There is yum/rpm and friends on Fedora whereas on Debian derivatives use dpkg/deb solutions. Meego brings rpm packages back. So there is no one ultimate distro for all. I personally like blue themes/artwork on Fedora plus F12 is very solid.

thanks for all the opinions guys! I have just burned off the linuxmint and the ubuntu live cd, and will be messing about with them over next few days!

I think I'm one of the minority that would not recommend Ubuntu if you really want a Linux experience.

For an amazing, free, and replaceable alternative to Windows then great, Ubuntu is perfect, but for me it's has lost all of original Linux vibe it once had, and when I use it I just don't get that Linux feel.

I'd start off Fedora, it offers the simplicity of Ubuntu, but allows for much greater configuration from the initial install, even though this may mean having to spending a little time before hand and after the installation reading up on certain things.

It puts a little more emphasis on using the command line, and from doing so you will learn alot.
If you wanted to, from then you could try out other, more configurable distributions that would really get your feet wet.

I've only been using Linux for about 6 years, and I've learnt much more in the last year and half since switching to Arch Linux than I had with any other distribution in the time before.

My journey was:
Gentoo > SuSe > PCLinuxOS > Ubuntu > Fedora > Arch Linux
I've found home with Arch, but I'm now venturing into BSD.

Ubuntu is kind of the standard choice for starting with linux, but there is a few other that offers the same type of experience : Mint, OpenSuse, kubuntu, fedora, mandriva... (uncomplete list).

Each of them has it own specifics but at the end of the day they are all built around the same software. A criterion of choice may be the desktop offered as default : Gnome or KDE. Anyway in almost any linux desktop distribution you can change that also.

Then there is some distribution more excentric that stands out of the crowd, but may not fit your need :

- debian : very stable, strong community spirit. Personnally I'm using for servers only because their conservative software updates on the desktop doesn't suit me.

- Arch linux : always the newer packages, user-friendly to the advanced user but definitely not to the newbie. I just love it !

- Gentoo : if you love the noise of your processor compiling... for advanced users also.

Using Linux from 1993, when you had to download a stack of thirty 1,44 meg floppies of which number 29 invariably was defect... Then I had to compile my own kernel for all the hardware drivers to work. Could take two hours on a 80386 with a whopping 80 megabyte disk :-)

Perhaps that is why I now use (K)ubuntu for ease of install and adding new applications. KDE may have some smaller problems but it has a nice GUI.

I stopped using SuSE five years ago because of the problems when adding new software.

My favorite windows games run in a virtual machine (VMware, which is better than VirtualBox).

This being a N900 forum I should add that I am terribly disappointed with Nokias support for Linux. I hoped to sync calendar and contacts with one of the Linux applications, but no. I am suck with nuevasync, which works well enough, but I don't like syncing with the cloud.

Paai

If you want KDE > opensuse
If you want gnome > ubuntu

Yes, you can install KDE on ubuntu, but it's still very bugged.
If you love debian package system then stay away from opensuse. Even though their KDE is super stable, I couldn't stand the package system that they have. So, I switched back to ubuntu with gnome.

Debian, imho, is not a good choice for desktop, but it's excellent for server.

If you want to put some energy into running Linux on your desktop I'd say archlinux is the best option: up-to date packages, great support on forums, IRC and wiki, no headaches from constant updating to new versions (a simple #pacman -Syu gives you an up-to date system always), and most of all a great selection of programs both on the official and community driven repositories and also from the Arch User Repository (AUR), if you want to compile stuff (like Gentoo) there is also the ABS (Arch Build System) which lets you compile everything yourself if you have that inclination.

All in all, I can't think of anything that any other distro does better than Arch.

A good first distro would on the other hand be Linux Mint I'd say.

ubuntu has quite amazing driving support. it made linux quite easy to use and you still get to mess around terminal to do stuff. but i feel it has taken out the linux, i doubt if you learn ubuntu you do just as well with another distro. sabayon is based off of gentoo, everything must be compiled. im sure if you get used to sabayon thats the best way to master linux. its just not something you would want if you just need it to work ASAP.