Knoppix is pretty easy and you can acutally run it from the CD to see how your hardware will do before you nuke your old OS and install to the harddrive.
Ubuntu is also a good choice, other than the butt-ugly brown and orange default color scheme. I put Ubuntu on my old laptop and everything worked on the first try- sound, 802.11, modem, and video.
If you don't want to wait for a download you can try your local Barnes and Noble/Borders and look in the magazine section for the imported Linux magazines from the UK. They run about $15 but feature a CD or DVD with a different linux distribution each month.
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