Fedora, openSUSE or Ubuntu. Can't really go wrong with any of them. All have graphical installers that'll set you up with no drama, all support a wide variety

Fedora, openSUSE or Ubuntu. Can't really go wrong with any of them. All have graphical installers that'll set you up with no drama, all support a wide variety of hardware, and they're the 'standard' distros that pretty much any and all software runs on. This may be slightly unpopular, but Ubuntu's Unity interface is probably the easiest for a newbie. It has a big dock with big buttons, the search feature is accessible, and it has a relatively tame look. Gnome shell is my favourite, but things are hidden and windows are always flying around. KDE has too many options - too much opportunity for newbies to get confused or to mess something up and not know how to fix it.