I’m not asking for a vote on the matter or anything, but just in case anyone happens to care, there have been 15 folks, about half of whom are not Mandrake users, who’ve suggested Mandrake 9.2 as being the ideal distro for beginners, two who’ve suggested Libranet/Debian, one Debian user who recommends not using Debian if you’re coming from Windows, three Lindows supporters and two SUSE advocates. Oh, and two bitter Windows lovers who are taking my migration WAY too personally.
The general view appears to be that Redhat, despite its virtues, is perhaps a little too corporate-focused for the home user. But the most significant point, I think, is that Linux in all its flavors is now a proven option now for the power Windows user. For those who are using Redhat, FreshRPMs is definitely a site worth bookmarking.