[PLUG] Which distribution for new user?

[Rich Shepard]

   I'm building a system for a user new to linux and know that Slackware is
not the preferred distribution for such a user. The various Debian offspring
seem to be very popular, but it seems to me to be a very large family. Would
xubuntu be an easy to learn, stable, reliable distribution for this type of
user? Or is there something else that you'd recommend?

Rich