I think the first thing you should do is determine which desktop environment you will feel most comfortable using. That might be gnome 2, gnome 3, kde 3, kde 4, lxde, xfce, e17, unity to name the most popular ones. Do a youtube search with those and see what interests you. In my opinion the different distros have a main desktop environment they support and the rest are second class citizens.

After you have determined what you want out of your main interface do a search on "Whats the best kde 4 distro" or "Whats the best Xfce distro".

As you become more acclimated to linux you can start to use it ala carte. You might decide that Distro X comes with crappy default configurations for Desktop Enviroment Y, but you really like how stable Distro X's repository of software is or maybe how Distro Z's software repository is on the bleeding edge and always has the latest updated packages (even though they might be less stable). At this point you are more confident and can configure the desktop enviroment the way you want are care more about the infrastructure of your operating system.

As has been suggested Unetbootin is an extremely easy way to test out different distros (as I'm sure you will get arguments on the "best" gnome 3 distro (for example)). Virtual machines are also a great way as well.

Another thing to consider is if you have a particular area of computing that interests you. For instance, if you are a music geek you might be best suited with something like Ubuntu Studio, or if you love to program there are distros that are setup to fulfill your needs right out of the box.

Good luck,

Linux Mint is my vote

If i where you i would disconnect those raid drives cause else u will perhaps loose it all. Linux needs abit of configuring before you even have 32bit colours, and it would be ashame if all your data was gone.

But you have a HP workstation, those are (i think), 100% compatible with Red Hat.

But i recommend you just download Ubuntu in Windows, and have no worries

What are you talking about? Have you even run linux on a machine in the past 2 years?

Well yeah used to work in datacenters, but thats long time ago. But they are still partners, so i thought they still deliver Redhat pre-installed on alot of the workstations. Ofcourse not the home desktops.

Should be okay i guess, as long if its not exotic/rare hardware.

Why do you want to install Linux? If you want to learn more about Linux don't install an 'easy' version of Linux.

Go for the full blown console only version - Linux from Scratch:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_From_Scratch

If you are serious about learning Linux, this is the route to take it would put you head and shoulders above other Linux 'users' and make you into a fully blown Linux Admin.

If you think it's going to be easy - think again!

Apologies for being a bit short, but the bit about 32-bit video needing configuring is FUD for all but maybe the most bleeding-edge hardware. Linux has come a long way, and these days with most modern distros you can just install and run.

OK there maybe a fair bit of tweaking to get things honed to how you want things, but that's the same with any os.

I just leave linux to my N900 and a couple servers i maintain. I run some Virtual machines to test them on my desktop. The rest are all dedicated servers. But i used to spent hours with configuring, building networks, servers, routers for the learning curve.

God i feel old lol (32+). I'm afraid if a beginner starts with from scratch, he would run to his 'familiar' Windows desktop. But then again nobody is the same. And there are hundreds of distro;s to explore

Let us know how you fare with Fedora. I have tried Fedora in the past and liked it quite a bit, the KDE version. I switched to OpenSUSE because I like rolling release distros. OpenSUSE has that when going the Tumbleweed route. But, Fedora may be a great starting distro. You are going to have to search their forums to get some things working, such as DVD viewing, and some codecs, but it is not hard.

I really like Gnome3 version of Fedora. It took little time to get used to it, but now I absolutely like it how the whole desktop area is effectively used for applications (no shortcut icons hiding under windows for vain) and how there is those hot corners in upper-left and bottom-right.

http://www.gnome.org/gnome-3/

(I must admit I first also was against gnome3, after using gnome2 with Windows7-like taskbars and such. But I decided to give it two weeks and learn the new ways. It was worth it.)