If there's a guide for this on TS, feel free to point it out, I didn't see one.

I'd like to download and learn to use Linux on my PC, not only to broaden my horizons, but also to help pimp out my resume. (The kinds of jobs I'm applying for are summer student things - nothing heavy. Point is, there's nothing I need to know, specifically.)

In another thread, I mentioned that I was thinking about getting Ubuntu, because I heard it was the "easy" one. Somebody in that thread, (it wasn't my own) said I should go with Gentoo instead, I guess because I'd be giving myself a better education in Open Source. So I was wondering what other people's recommendations are, and if you could outline the pros and cons of my options, that'd be great.

And the system I'm planning on using is my old PC. I don't know the specific system specs, but I had it custom made for me in 2004. Standard 520 megs of memory, P3 processor...anything else you need to know, just ask.

Thanks guys.

Thanks for the reply...I'm kind of leaning toward Ubuntu right now because it seems to be popular. Perhaps the handiest one to know. Now I just have to figure out how to partition my drives or find another way. *sigh*

All mainstream Linux distros are good starting points.. Gentoo and Debian may be a bit more daunting.

Don't worry about partitioning - virtually all modern Linux installers will do all the resizing and partitioning for you with a pretty wizardy interface.

Just read the installation documents and try it out.

Fedora or Ubuntu.

Really? ...I did not know this. Thanks, that's awesome.