don't get any rpm-based distro. to install anything you're gonna go through dependancy ****. that means don't get fedora, red hat, suse, or mandrake. they may be easy to install up front, but to install anything else will be a pain in the ***.
as others ahve said the best noob distros are probably slackware or something debian-based like (k)ubuntu. slack if you want to learn a lot in linux, debian will be a bit easier to use because apt-get takes care of all dependancies without having to go out and actually search for the package.