[unperson]

I agree with this, I'm not sure that Linux is ready to beat Widnows for the desktop environment. However, I do prefer the bash shell and highly recommend cygwin (with mintty). To me, this is the best of both worlds.

If you are set to install Linux as your desktop, Ubuntu is as good a choice as any, if only because it is the most popular and thus probably has the largest support base. In reality, the primary difference between the various Linux distros comes down to where things go, how applications are installed/upgraded, default settings and the like, so your first choice shouldn't make much of a difference.