[TriLUG] Easy Distro

[Mark Freeze]

I am giving a computer to a person who really doesn't have the money
to buy their own.  It's a fairly decent, but older box.  It has a
Celeron 1.8G processor, a 75GB drive, and about 512MB of RAM.  This
person doesn't have any real computer skills, but has used XP in the
past.  All they want the computer for is to browse the internet,
email, word, excel, etc...

I have told them that I would give them the computer but I don't have
any copies of XP, or Office, and they don't have the cash to buy their
own.  I figured I would put Linux & Open Office on the box so my
question is this:  In everyone's humble opinion, what is the absolute
best distro for a true entry level user?  I personally use Mandrake
which seems pretty easy to me, but I've never used anything else
except Red Hat before the RHEL/FC split.

Thanks,
Mark.