I use ubuntu myself. It is a great distro. The only other distro I've used was Fedora Core 1 & 2. But Ubuntu is by far my favorite, and very easy to use. As I am an ultra-n00b when it comes to linux. Ubuntu uses the Gnome GUI, but if you get Kubuntu it uses KDE (which I never liked) Ubuntu website: http://ubuntulinux.org/ Kubuntu website: http://www.kubuntu.org/ Friendly Community Forum: http://ubuntuforums.org/ A walkthrough once you get the OS installed: http://ubuntuguide.org/ The only good image editor on Linux that I found to be good was GiMP: http://gimp.org/ Which comes with Ubuntu install disc. Here is a screenshot of my Ubuntu desktop taken a few months ago using the Gnome GUI: http://dangerouscopilot.com/xfer/store/Screenshot.png