I myself started with ubuntu, to get used to linux, because it is quite hard to move from Amiga OS to any other operating system, when I understood a bit how linux works, I installed myself Gentoo, now everything works great, i like it because you need to compile everything yourself and there is a step to step installation tutorial so it was quite easy, just took time. Ubuntu I remember was really easy to install, couple of mouse clicks and thats all, i just had sound problems with it and I think it suits for beginners quite good and if someone does not like gnome, use kubuntu instead.P.SI never used Windows, except for in school, at friends and in libray always had an alternative since 1996