If you don't pick a specific distro, wel - even if you do, pick your own window manager.
Heres a list of some window managers applicable to all 'versions', aka Distributions of Linux which run an xorg/xfree86(please no):

KDE: Pretty, simple to use, Much like Windows, not as bloated, but for a Linux system, very bloated.

Gnome: Less bloated than KDE, very stable, comes with a great set of useful tools such as the file-rollers. Still a bit over the top for a small install.

Openbox: Excellent as a window manager, but very very lightweight. It lacks a bit of functionality, combine with a program such as rox-filer to get a desktop running.

Fluxbox: Like Openbox, but with a taskbar, tabbing windows together (love it!). My personal choice, but I still run rox-filer in the background to get an active desktop.

XFCE4: Excellent. Lightweight, packed with functionality, comes with a great set of tools, although the file manager is a bit poor. Run with the rox-filer as the file manager and you have a top notch desktop environment.

Rox: This is apparently pretty much like XFCE4, never tried it, but if its as good as its filer, then it is sure to be brilliant!

Enlightenment: Difficult to configure, but is very good looking, responsive, and lightweight. Comes with no helpful tools, you must configure through its scripts.

There are many more out there to play with though.

::quote::
ok, two more things,
my computer has two drives, i wasnt really sure what i was doing during the disk partitining phase so im wondering if theres any way to find out what happend to my other drive, some way to display physical drives
::quote::

The disks should be present under the /dev directory.
The drives connected to the primary ATA cable will probably be called
/dev/hda (master)
/dev/hdb (slave)

Those connected to the secondary ATA cable would be
/dev/hdc (master)
/dev/hdd (slave)

You can check out the partitions by using the fdisk program.
From a console, type
# fdisk /dev/hda
If there is no disk connected to the primary master, fdisk will tell you so and quit.
If there is a disk there, you will get a simple menu based interface.
Type 'm' to get an overview of the possible commands, or 'p' to print the current partitions.
Dont play around with the fdisk program if you are not familiar with it, and quit it by typing 'q' NOT 'w' (unless you actually want to save your changes)

The floppy is usually named /dev/fd0

If it is a scuzzy disk at the primary master it would typically be named /dev/sda rather than /dev/hda.

The first partition on the primary master (dev/hda) is called /dev/hda1, as you can see from the partition list in fdisk.
The second is /dev/hda2 etc...

The cool thing about the /dev directory is that pretty much every device on your system is represented there, as a so-called node (special file)

Quote: Original post by johnnyBravo
I was wondering what people think of Gentoo versuses Ubuntu

As someone who wants to spend his time using his computer to get things accomplished, rather than someone who wants to spend his time doing things to his computer, I infinitely prefer Ubuntu.