Ubuntu, definitely. I have used Linux distros from Red Hat 7.1 (before it was renamed Fedora) to Slackware 10.0 to Mandrake (now called Mandriva) and Damn Small Linux (the most Linux you can fit on a 50 MB business-card-shaped CD) and none of them have been as good as Ubuntu. It is the best of ‘Linux-for-geeks’ combined with the best of modern ‘desktop OS’ design. It’s stable, easy to maintain, and easy to use. It executes infinite loops in five seconds flat and it not only makes its own gravy, it does the dishes and waxes the floor afterwards. I’m quite taken with it. I wish it to have my children and help me found a colony of half-breeds so that we might worship Dagon.
The biggest thing I love about Ubuntu is the package management system. This is something Windows has never really had, even though it’s tried in a half-assed way. In Ubuntu, there is no possibility of DLL Hell: Every piece of software knows what it depends on down to the version number and the package manager arranges for it to be downloaded and installed at the same time as the software itself. If a piece of software needs to be updated for something else to work, the package manager knows about it and will make it happen. Also, it is possible for two versions of the same library to be installed at the same time without conflicting. The reason why that’s true is a bit technical, but it nearly always works out fine. The package manager also knows enough to uninstall software cleanly without leaving the system in a weird state, allowing you to cleanly recover from software that didn’t work out for some reason.
In other words, the package management system in Ubuntu is like an Add/Remove Programs dialog that actually works every time.
SuSE, on the other hand, really isn’t anything special. It has all of the same software, but it doesn’t have a good package management system so installing it and keeping it all working over the course of a few years (and upgrades) is harder than it has to be. (Choosing a Linux distro is never about what software will run on it. All Linux distros will run the same software. It’s more important to measure how easy it is to install and remove software.) That alone is enough to make me recommend against it: Fedora never had a very good package management system either, and eventually enough junk accumulated that managing it became a nightmare.
The only thing you have to do to keep the package manager happy is keep your files in your own home directory (like /home/aleq or something). (In fact, it’s good to make /home its own partition during the installation process: It makes upgrading, backup, and changing distros easier.) This is never a big deal or even a minor hassle, and the result is worth it.
