What do I do?

[streetballer14]

I am brand new to linux...

I have a computer and the hard drive crashed. I have no recovery disks so I am just going to buy a new hard drive, but I don't want to have to pay for the Windows OS. Assuming I put the new HD in, what version of linux do I use (i want to do basic tasks like listening to music, videos, internet browsing, games, ect.), and how would I permanently install it with out an excisting OS on the computer? If I could get step by step instructions, and a link to download from, that would be great.
Thanks!

The computer is 1.0GHZ Intel celeron, 256MB RAM

[oz]

Welcome to the forums!

This is considered a "which distro" question. As such, you should take a look at the link in my signature for lots of information about getting started with Linux.

Once you've decided which distro you want to go with, go ahead and install it, and start a new thread if you should run into any problems.

oz