Go with redhat, it is stable.

Most of the distros people will throw out will be pretty similar for a beginner; they'll have slightly different installers, slightly different administrative software, and very little difference in available packages. Ubuntu, CentOS, Fedora, and SuSE will all probably do about as well for you.

If you like to start by jumping in the deep end and trying to swim out, I'd recommend Gentoo or Slackware (Gentoo was my first distro). These are not so easy but you will learn a lot more just from the install process. I would note, however, that Gentoo makes you compile all of your software from source code, so if you want to try it be aware that it will take the longest time by far...

Good luck with whichever distro you choose!

CentOS is very stable but its a bit hard to set it up for dvd playback and certain other media files like flash and java

I recommend ubuntu . its:

• 1 cd (you can order it if you dont want to download, its cheap - you want version 7.04 feisty fawn)
• you can boot from the cd and try it out first without installing anything (runs in memory)
• easy to install media codecs etc....
• easy to keep updated
• designed for newbies - the forums are good

256+ mb ram and a pentium 3+ or equivilent is about the recommended spec

It all depends on your goals with Linux. If you simply want a stable operating system replacement for Windows and don't want to learn much about the insides of Linux, choose something simple like Ubuntu or SuSE.

If you actually want to learn the insides of Linux, go with what Infarction suggested. He's right -- the installation process of Slackware or Gentoo will teach you far more about Linux than Ubuntu or some other "easy distro" usually does in months.

Another thing you have to keep in mind is the distro's minimum requirements. No point in installing something if your computer's hardware can't handle it.

Yes, you need a minimum of 256 mb for most modern distributions (debian and slackware may allow you to get away with 128) and somewhere in the region of 384 for a flash distro like SuSE or Mandriva. You will need a 1ghz+ CPU

Double these requirements for a livecd e.g to get a usable system using the ubuntu livecd you will need about 512, or 256 when installed

My PC's are currently running different version of Windows. I'm thinking of getting one beefy machine and switching to one XandrOS box. Anyone have any experience or issues with XandrOS?

Thx,
Dia

never tried it, IMHO they are better, free, distros available.

take a look at PCLinux OS - it runs good on beefy machines

umm what is xandrOS

a linux version, there is no single "linux" there are may different "distributions" to meet different needs.

http://distrowatch.com/