If your thinking about using or moving to Linux, then this multi-part article Windows to Linux Roadmap should be very helpful.

A good list of popular Linux distributions can be found at http://distrowatch.com/ and another list that looks very complete can be found at http://www.linux.org/dist/index.html and at http://www.linuxiso.org/ you can download an ISO for a Linux distribution and burn it to a CD for installation.

I have been using Linux since 1995 in the server environment, and have not willingly used anything else, in Aug. 2001 I made my move to Linux for my desktop.

I have grown to love the Gentoo Linux distribution by using it as my personal computers operating system, it has proven it''s performance and reliability, as well as ease of management and operation.

Gentoo Linux is a source based distribution, and utilizing it''s portage system of package management makes for easier updates and for me, an end to the dependancy issues that I always ran into with RPM based distributions.