"Debian Etch is a very good Linux distribution. It has all the latest versions of software--even more recent than those found in Ubuntu Dapper (though that is bound to change once Ubuntu releases its next version) and also a pretty GUI installer. Recently when I downloaded and installed the latest version of Debian Etch Beta 3, every thing went quite smoothly--Etch correctly detected all the hardware in my machine and I was booted into Linux in no time.
