Many claim that Red Hat is newb-friendly, though many ditch it for saner pastures once they figure out what they're doing... I haven't used Red Hat for years so my own experience there is a bit out of date. I'd suggest avoiding Debian until you're more experienced... I've heard a few decent things about FreeBSD but I can't verify the ease of install at this point- need a spare box of my own first. Avoid NetBSD as if it were a cracked container dripping fluid and labeled "EBOLA VIRUS". Of course, you're planning on sticking with x86 hardware... Otherwise the most obvious answer to the question "What flavor of *NIX would be best for a relative newbie?" would be Mac OS X. };>