Originally posted by hogfly
gentlemen,
Msmittens wrote a few excellent tutorials on linux. go to the tutorials section, and check out the index by negative to find them.

As for which distro to use...everyone as their favorites, so opinions don't really count in this case, My suggestion is to try quite a few of the distro's and find out which one you like best. there is a give and take with each one. There are "harder" distro's to learn, but they may come easy to you, so don't limit yourself in what you choose.
check here for a list of distro's: www.linux.org/dist/english.html
If you need a quick link to MsMitten's linux tutorials, see them at http://www.geocities.com/skriptkittykat/linuxtut.html
The tutorials were reproduced on my site with permission from MsMittens, so dont think that I stole them.