[Abarbarian]

http://www.tuxradar.com/content/best-distro-2011

Choosing a distro can be confusing, time consuming and too much hard work, which is why many Linux users don't stray far from updating the one they know best.
Such laziness is commendable, but as the distros vie with each other on different fronts, you may be missing out on one that would suit your needs better. Are you more interested in getting the very latest free software, or do you care more about security? Would you rather run a Gnome desktop or KDE? Do you want your distro to choose all your software for you or do you relish the prospect of installing every package by hand?

This gives a wel balanced view in my opinion of some of the main distros. It does not cover all the main os's and none of the smaller ones but is well worth the read if you are new to GNU/Linux.

[floppybootstomp]

A good read