I noticed some of the comments were a bit old so I thought I would comment on the newest release for 2005, which rocks!

If you are not familiar with Linux or how computers work in general the installation may seem a bit daunting at first, but the documentation is fabulous and very thorough. If you follow it you will have no problem. I think they are working on a graphical installer as well. (yes, the current installation is text based).

Once you have the base CD installed the rest is simple. With Gentoo's powerful (did I mention it's very powerful?) management system, Portage, the installation and management of your system software is easy and highly customizable. You are in controll of practically every aspect of how your system is configured and runs.

I switched from RH Fedora and have been using Gentoo for a few months now and I love it. Give it a try and you will too.

AMD64 2800+ CPU
512MB DDR RAM
80GB Western Digital Serial ATA Hard Drive
450 Watt PS