Well, most of the people who want to try Linux for the first time are generally lost in the multitude of Linux distro available. 
They generally think Red Hat is different and Ubuntu is something else, what is Mandriva by the way. Hey, what about Fedora.  So friends, hold on your horses and give your mind a little rest.
I tell you, broadly speaking there are two kinds of Linux generally popular: GNOME and KDE.  GNOME is generally considered as a native Linux Desktop environment whereas KDE provides new users (switching from Windows) a similar Windows environment so that they don’t find lots of difference between Windows and Linux.  Though there is a huge difference.

With Windows, you work less and wait more for the applications to respond, even with heavy resources.  (More coffee breaks, less productivity)  Whereas, in Linux everything works the way you want it.  No more waiting and no waste of precious time and no wasting money on resources.

Anyways, below are two screen grabs to give you a little idea of both.

Now it is time to discuss about distro/flavors.
Linux is available in various flavors like Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, Red Hat, OpenSUSE and Gentoo etc.  These are just a handful of them.  But Ubuntu has become recently the choice of most of the people.  
Because it is easy to use, easy to try and install, has a great community around it to help you if you face any problem.  There is no other Linux flavor which has such a great forum as Ubuntuforum.org to help the users.

People tried every other distro, but when they tried Ubuntu, never tried anything else.

To know a little bit about other distros and what users like, read this Face off article on Lifehacker.  Go through the comments to know more about user choice.  But finally the choice is yours.
Linux gives you so much freedom to customize it that no other operating system in the world gives.  If you want, you may make your Linux installation look exactly like Mac Leopard or Windows Vista.  
But hey, don’t stop there, you can make it even better and faster than that with cool effects using Compiz Fusion.
So go ahead and download the latest Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid Ibex” which is releasing on 31st October and give Linux a try. 
I will see you again with more tips on Linux.
(Image Credit : Photooptik and Blogger Dude)

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