Anyone else get free Ubuntu CDs shipped to their house? I think I had 7.10 (Gusty Gibbon) shipped to my house back in 2007.
Otherwise, Mandrake Linux was my first "good" distro. I first tried one called Lycoris which claimed to be an beginner's distro with it's own DE, and it was impressive how well it handled setting up a dual boot installation and at the time it was a revelation that I could use a computer without Windows. I didn't begin preferring linux until I tried Mandrake with KDE 3, though.
And life has been transformed! Everything is wonderful now!