I would recommend you try Linux Mint as an introduction to Linux. Mint is based on Ubuntu but as a big plus comes preloaded with the most popular media codecs and a few other items & tweaks.
Another one to try is Mandriva One 2010. Easy to setup, configure & use.
Go to
DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD. which is IMHO one of the best sources for Linux distribution info.