Switch from XP to Linux

Hello, I have been using XP since I have owned a PC, I want to switch over to something different. My question is what would be the best version to start out with for a Linux newbie? Also I have another hard drive where I store all my music/movies on, will they still be able to work with Linux?

Thanks in advance!

The best one in my view to start out for those new to Linux is Ubuntu. Very friendly. And as the second hard drive goes, You will still be able to read from it, but if its in NTFS you will need some special stuff to write to it. If its not a NTFS file system then it should work perfectly.

they should work on linux and id go with knoppix or suse linux. http://www.linuxquestions.org/ download em there

also, if you wanna keep xp so you have something you know while you learn linux, try using a virtual pc.

ok, First of all i recommend you dual boot because what if you don't like linux? your pretty much buggered. You mentioned that you have two hard-drives. what you should do is partition and install linux on the second hard-drive and set that as the master. that way if something does go abit wrong then you simply can boot from the windows hard-drive and your safe. I'm not trying to scary you away from using linux, i'm using it right now, but to many people dive into linux without reading about it first…. like me :P. make sure you know exactly what your doing. oh, and i use slackware which i recommend for people that have used linux before but if your new that i suggest SuSE.