Best distro for beginner

[spkuc]

I am a reasonably competent PC user and am not averse to diving into the registry on my Windows Me machine which I built myself.

I would like to try out Linux but need some advice as to which to use. I believe I should start with one of several 'distros'. I am not sure what is meant by a kernel although that seems to be a word used regularly when I see articles about Linux.

What I need to know is which one is best for ease of installation? Is installation like Windows NT where there is no plug and play? I have been to a site where several distros are in seperate folders. Do I just copy the folder and it's contents to a partition on my hard drive? If so is there then a familiar setup.exe?

Sorry about all the questions but I hope someone can help.

spkuc
spkuc@bigfoot.com

[Dave's not here]

There are a ton of posts on this subject here if you look around, but the best distro for a newbie is Mandrake 8.0. It autodetects most hardware and is very easy to get up and running. If you have a CD burner, the easiest way to install is by downloading the Mandrake 8.0 ISO and burning that to a CD, then boot from CD. As far as the kernel goes, I am still to much of a newbie to give a good description, but Mandrake uses kernel 2.4.3 which is stable and one of the newest releases. I am not sure about other install methods, but using the ISO's is very easy and should install pretty painlessly. Good luck! :D