There are hundreds of distros of Linux out there, but what you should carefully consider is the kernel development and which distros handle driver issues best. Linux can be difficult to do when it comes to sound cards, video cards and printer drivers.
nVidia has a proprietary HOLD on their video drivers that prevents Linux distro creators from automatically packaging and installing their drivers during installation. You have to go to the nVidia site, read through some horrible tech gobledygook, download the driver and install it, and you may or may not easily get it installed. This is not the case with ATI video cards, however.
Depending on whether or not CUPS has updated your printer driver or not (CUPS is the printer driver organizatio for Linux), you may or may not get your printer to be recognized.
Depending on whether or not manufacturers such as Creative have released their architecture for sound, to ALSA, the Linux sound interface organization, you may or may not get your sound working.
So the first thing to do is find out, check out ALSA and identify your sound card or internal sound and find out if it is on the identified list of sound devices:
http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Main_Page
Identify your printer and check with CUPS:
http://www.cups.org/
And your video card:
....For nVidia:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html
....For ATI
http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html
(pick your driver as X86 if you have 32 bit operating system)
Have these drivers on a CD with the -R such as CD-R because Linux CD reader/writer software has had problems with CD+R disks.
I think you should stick with one of the three major distributions which are:
UBUNTU
SuSE
FEDORA Core {offshoot of Redhat Linux)
The reason why I say this is because these three distributions are the best known, and that means, more of the developer community is putting more of its efforts into fixing bugs in these three distros. You do not want to go off into Linux using a little known or difficult distribution until you at least become familiar with command line commands, the GNU compiler, and just getting used to how things work in Linux. Linux can be very techie and difficult,especially if you get the non-windows interface called "X" which is just a blank screen and a DOS-like prompt (this is the old style UNIX screen).
Secondly, the support forums for these three distros are the best developed Linux forums on the net, which means,you get faster help with problems and answering questions. Lesser known distros have slim forum support and you are more or less on your own ... and as a Linux newbie, you do not want that! Linux is very different from the standpoint of what is under the hood. The nice Windows interface can bely a tricky and difficult, cranky system unless you just love spending your entire life in front of a DOS prompt trying to figure out what to do next.
Thirdly, there are more books out there written for the three major Linux distros than any other. I would suggest you go to the bookstore and buy at least one book on the major distro you choose so that you can start to read up. You should pay particular attention to the file system in Linux, the structure of the directories (every distro will distribute operating system files to a different place in the directory structure). Knowing how to give some basic directory commands in LInux is very important. Linux does NOT hold your hands like MS Windows does...you have to get down and dirty with the operating system at some point in your experience.
My top recommendation is to use one of these three distros. Ubuntu is the most friendly of the three, but I happen to like the updater and the installer in Fedora Core myself...this is another important feature of Linux, that you want to look at, how do updates get downloaded and installed? You don't want to deal with having to manually download each package of a 50 package update manually, opening each one (unzipping) and then install manually each one at the GNU Compiler prompt. Not as a beginner, anyway. You want an automatic download and installation, much like in Windows, until you begin to learn the GNU compiler commands and how to use them. The best way to do this is to just get into the GNU compiler, download a few files for a particular software, and then roll up your sleaves and start to compile the software manually. If things don't compile, don't worry! You just need more experience than you have now. Keep trying! Some things will compile without a glitch and some things won't compile and will have cryptic complicated reasons.
WEll, I don't want to scare you! Actually, Linux is very cool, and I love it...but as an experienced Linux user, I would advise you for now, to stick with a main line distribution.
You can always try another distro out, just by downloading it and burning an ISO of it. If you don't like one you can try another...all for free. I happen to stick with Fedora Core myself...just out of familiarity. I started with SuSE and have played with some other distros but I ended up liking Fedora best.