The most important thing: use one of the long-term distros. If you choose Ubuntu, go for the LTS even when it isn't the latest. If you're a RedHat fan, pass o

The most important thing: use one of the long-term distros. If you choose Ubuntu, go for the LTS even when it isn't the latest. If you're a RedHat fan, pass over Fedora for CentOS/RHEL. If you go with Debian, don't use testing. My personal opinion is that if you're already familiar with RedHat/Fedora, CentOS will fit you better. Most of the time with these things it's familiarity that will trump all the superiority that fanboys flame about.