Mandrake and Red Hat are the distributions of linux that are most often mentioned as being convenient (and so are the most popular.) The Knoppix distro on a CD -complete boot and install in about 2 minutes- is really neat, but it take some investigation to figure out how to put a permanent installation on a HD. All three are easy to set up. Just put the boot/install CD in and answer very few or no mysterious question. All three attempt to present a Windows-like face to the user.
I see Mandrake 10 (which is very new) requires 64 M, but the Mandrake 9.1 docs say it only requires 32 M, and you can probably still find it pretty easy.
$9 at almostfreelinux
With later and later distros the setup programs, which Mandrake and Red Hat have their custom versions of, have become simpler and more throrough. Chances are that everything will be set up and working once the installer has finished. However, if it isn't, prepare yourself for PITA "learning experience." You will see what hardcore unix freaks love so much. Linux is not for ordinary people, if they have to install, change, or setup anything on their own. If you think XP can be pain, you have no idea.
Let me give you an idea, and this is not so bad, because in this case I was successful, unlike some others. The Mandrake 9.1 distro automatically sets up a couple of CD burner programs. I decided to burn a music CD. It was easy to get all the mp3 files arranged for the burn. The look and feel was klunky compared to XP, but really, so what? But when it came time to burn, nothing happened. I got some gobbledegook error message. (More informative than typical XP error messages though.) Since I needed the "learning experience," I decided to track it down on my own, if possible. After a few hours per day for a few days in futile trial and error, I eventually figured out the name of a setup file that possibly was not being set correctly. I figured out the format of the entries in the setup file (which was straighforward) and copied one entry, replacing the burner name with what the error message called my burner. (Allmost all of the entries were the same except for the burner name.) So then the burner program burned the CD. Unfortunately the CD is a pain in the ear, because the burner program lacks an auto-level feature that Nero has, and -as is common- the mp3's vary tremendously in volume. One track will be hard to hear, while the following track will blast out an eardrum.
Since you are a newbie, I will point out that the fact that linux is an OS does not mean it will run Windows programs. Linux runs linux (unix) programs. There is an adapter module, WINE, that can run some Windows programs sometimes, which is incomplete and buggy. WINE is a good example of how linux afficianados make unqualified, inflated claims for their beloved, or neglect to point out important things. Although I haven't tried out WINE in years, so it should be better, I think I did once get Notepad to run, after hours of guesswork, and nothing else. But they still made the same claims for WINE back then that they make for it now, which were misleading back then.
What are most convenient when you install software, and which both Mandrake and Red Hat have built in support for, are .rpm files. These files automatically install completely if you just click on them.
Linux is designed to be on its own file system, which is alien to Windows file systems. You normally need to repartition (or wipe) your HD to have something to install linux on.
IMO, even the old windowing systems, before Gnome and KDE, were OK from the point of view of ease-of-use and simplicity. The exact reason people are so enthused over the new ones, I do not know. They do look nice.
Lots of distros for cheap They give links to the originator, which you can check out for the requirements.
Filemirrors.com Search on Mandrake for possible old versions. Get Getright for a resuming file downloader. I've gotten iso CDs this way by downloading at night for a couple of weeks at 28800. Most distros only require the first CD for most users.