Linux reccomendation for a newbie

Ok I am a dyed in the wook Slackware guy. Slack is the "one true"(tm) linux as far as I am concerned. But I also know that newbies and those that do not want to become an expert at it will hate slackware or can not use it. So I used to reccomend Mandrake/mandriva to everyone as a good starter Distro and a good all around no sweat maintaince distro... Heck it's even good as a server Os. (CentOS is my favorite there now) But after ignoring ubuntu as a late to the party wierdo with ravenous fans for a couple of years I gave up grabbed a CD pack from a friend and installed it on a super old P-III 550 laptop with only 342 Meg of ram. I have become extremely impressed so far. So much so that I will be upgrading Lynne from Mandriva 2006 to this. I personally do not like how they broke mandrake with the switch to mandriva and their 2006 version is what feels like a step backwards with lots of broken things. Granted I did an upgrade and not a fresh install but a distro you buy should be able to upgrade perfectly.

So it seems that I will be abandoning Mandriva for Ubuntu for my newbie desktops. Lynne is not really a newbie having used linux on her computer for 2 years now and she has NO desire to ever go back to windows.... her words on that , "This just works!" She used to run XP, i used to have to fix XP monthly. Spyware, viruses, other wierdness, old apps not running right. Now with linux she is happy with open office, she is happy with care free internet use and that the computer just works.

I think ubuntu will make it even better for her.