Which have you been using/ toying with? To what results? PLease share your experience as I intend to take the plunge
IMHO, the best distro for the beginner is Linux Mint. I had minimal problems with it, and I'm no Linux guru. It's important to ask yourself -exactly- what you intend to do with Linux. If you just want to surf and perform day to day tasks, then it's perfect for you. If you're expecting support for "obscure" hardware ('Obscure' by the Linux community's standards) then you may be out of luck. And if you're a gamer, then Linux will leave you dissatisfied. Support for games on the level of MS simply doesn't exist, mostly because of patent issues. But it's getting there.
I've been through this exercise in the past few months trying variations of Linux based on Ubuntu. I've settled on Linux Mint with XFCE for two i5 laptops and Lubuntu with LXDE for two Core2Duo laptops (8 years old). Happy as could be with the result. I had to consult forums for: networking using SAMBA, SAMBA itself was OK it was getting it installed with a GUI that I needed guidance File permissions and using chmod and chown. This was the hardest however it is also the big advantage of Linux i.e. security. I had to understand permissions for moving files from one PC to another. You may not encounter the necessity. Configuring UFW (the firewall) to get Chromecast to work. Bear in mind that having elected to move the Linux operating OS you then have to choose a variant based on: the set of included applications e.g Mint, Lubuntu, Ubuntu, then the desktop environment e.g. XFCE, LXDE, Gnome, KDE, Cinnamon, Unity The default applications which come with Mint are great for everyday tasks. Choice is great but you do get overwhelmed with it and eventually have to go with your preferred choice based on what you have tried, its impossible to cover the whole field.
I tried Mint, but it fails to sense when I close my Dell laptop's lid. Xubuntu (similar to Ubuntu) works very smoothly for me.
And therein lies the rub: waiting and hoping for someone else to do something so you can do what you want to do. "A matter of time" might be months or even years and none of us can pin it down. You may be willing to wait an indeterminate length of time to use Linux for gaming; many of us are not inclined to do so.
I would go for ubuntu in my case but hey proberly al versions will stick depends on your level of expertise with linux
I tried Ubuntu and stuck with it, as it suited me so well. Although, I suspect I would feel the same about Mint, had I tried it first. And I think all distros can be run from a "live usb" - meaning you can try them out without making any change to your current Windows OS. In addition, there are countless clips on YouTube if you want see a particular one in action.
According to distrowatch Linux Mint is the most popular by far. I triple boot Windows 10, Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon, and Kali. I don't think there is a "best" distro. It all depends on what you're trying to do. If you want the easiest and most supported, then Mint. Ubuntu fixes for problems almost always work for Mint too. I personally hate Unity and Gnome desktop environments, but I like Cinnamon so your mileage may vary. One netbook I have has a funky touchpad that only works right with KDE. Fedora or Red Hat might be a better choice if you want to make money at a company since most corporations use Red Hat last time I checked. I haven't tried either of those since about 10 years ago when I repeatedly got stuck in "rpm dependency hell" but things may have changed since then. You might like Debian. You might want a version without systemd. You might like a BSD version. If you want to build it from the ground up then Linux from Scratch. You really just need to try a few different distros if you can. If not, then just go with what everyone is telling you, I guess.