Evening!

[raoulduke]

Well, as I've already asked a silly question in the tech section, I thought I'd best say hello politely

I've attempted to get my head around Linux before, but it's only now that I'm using a wiped laptop with no Windows installation that I'm being forced to do it properly! I'm still an absolute novice, but it does make sense, and I'm appreciating the simplicity of everything compared to Windows, even just from using the GUI. Not sure how well I'll do with the 'proper' programming side but hey, it's a challenge!

On the subject, is Fedora the best distro for an absolute beginner to be using? I'm not aiming to be a total master of linux, but I do want to understand exactly how everything is working, while still having a user-friendly front end for other people to use, and wondered if there was a more suitable option?

Anyhow, greetings & drinks all round etc etc

[elija]

I wouldn't recommend Fedora for complete beginners but it's not a distro I like much. If it's working for you then that's great.

If you ask 10 linux users for a distro recommendation you will typically get at least 15 different answers. The best way is to try a few and see which one you like the best.

[MASONTX]

Welcome to the forum. I agree with elija, and would recommend you go to distrowatch.com and scroll down the right side of the page until you get to the top 100. Read about each distribution, and download and try several live cd's to see what works for you. Best of luck.

[oz]

On the subject, is Fedora the best distro for an absolute beginner to be using?

Welcome aboard!

For some new Linux users Fedora is the best beginner distro, and for others it isn't so much, but then that's true of nearly all the different distros. That's why it's always recommended that new users try a few and decide for themselves what works best for them, and their hardware. Unfortunately, there isn't a distribution that is truly the best for all new users.

We hope you'll find something that you really like.

[Manko10]

For users who want complete control over their system and even those wanting to know how everything works (like you) I always recommend Gentoo or Arch Linux. I myself use Gentoo Linux but it's definitely a system for more advanced users (as well as Arch) but if you got a little into the Linux world you should at least take a look at these two.

For the beginning I would recommend something common like SUSE, RedHat etc. Many people prefer Ubuntu but in my opinion it has emerged too much as a proprietary operating system. It's more like MacOS X for Linux: having the lates knick-knack, veering away from the standards and not even functioning in a proper way.
I know lots of Ubuntu guys would kill me for this but that's my opinion about Ubuntu and yes: I also used Ubuntu once, but by and by it drove me nuts and I switched to more flexible and standards compliant distributions.

[PrinceSharma]

Well, If you want your system ready out of the box right after Installing, then you may wish to go for Ubuntu or Linux Mint.
Rest, folks here have said well and enough