So yeah, I've decided to give linux a try after I had to completely format and reinstall everything on my machine, I currently have a 50gb windows XP partition, and an empty 50gb partition, and I thought: Why not give linux a try and dual boot my computer.

The problem is, I'm getting bombed with all kinds of variations of linux. I just want the simple: install-and-I'm-ready-to-go version of linux.
Which one is it?

Ubuntu!

They all suck. Just pick one.

Ubuntu is probably the way to go for your needs. It makes a point of being easy to install and use, and it has great support forums.

Ubuntu if you must.

ubuntu because you must

Ubuntu!

You might want to wait for 9.04, which should be out sometime this month.

just apt-get dist-upgrade when the new one comes out

If you wanna try a bunch of em out first w/out having to (re)wipe your partition / bootloader or use liveCDs/USB, you can get VirtualBox and install a bunch of them to play around with.

Seconded! I used to use Redhat 9 then switched to Gentoo, then now run Gentoo on desktop and Fedora on the lappy.

It sure was a pain back in the day when I was switching around to decide on which distro I wanted.

For Ubuntu, you might install it with Wubi so that you don't have to repartition.

Ha, "Install-and-im-ready-to-go linux" like hell.

I installed Ubuntu and everything worked perfectly the moment it booted up. The only thing that didn't work was sound, and I realized later that was an error on my part. If it requires both less time to install than Windows and absolutely no driver installation for most people, and that is not "install-and-im-ready-to-go," then maybe I have the wrong definition of "install-and-im-ready-to-go."

Have you ever even played around with Linux? Ever?

Everything didn't work if the sound didn't work.

You know how many times I've installed Vista and something didn't work? Never. I've probably installed vista atleast 5 times by now on other peoples computers.

I've installed it numerous times without incident. I admit the first time around I had to do some fiddling to get my display working, but that was five versions ago and that problem is long gone.

Works really well... Of course, I never really got into using Ubuntu but I will admit it was convenient when Windows had some malware issues and I had to get a paper done. I switched to Ubuntu, finished the paper in OpenOffice, and continued work on eliminating the malware later. Kind of is nice having a backup OS.