Choose and install a good Linux flavour

Which Linux to choose?

In brief, choose Ubuntu Mate. 

Ubuntu Mate Virtualbox screenshot

This post is meant to help you save time and effort by zooming into one or more Linux flavour that may be well worth your time installing. Some Linux derivatives may prove to be time consuming and even kind of waste of time if discarded after downloading and tested to be unsatisfactory. 

Choose Ubuntu

There are many Linux distros on the market. I suggest to save your time and consider Ubuntu-based straight off.  Reasons may include:

• GUI may appear more professional, aesthetic or user-friendly
• Stability and consistent
• Core software may be easily updated
• Perhaps the most comprehensive in terms of support both community & paid and extensive offerings - Cloud/Server/Desktop/Phone/Tablet/ioT/Core
• Many flavours to choose from, perhaps too many for a newbie: https://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu-flavours

Welcome Screenshot

Unless you already have a very specific need or reason to install certain flavour such as MythBuntu for MythTV based PVR, Edubuntu for educational classroom purposes or ubuntu Studio for multimedia content creation, Lubuntu for low-spec hardware, etc, otherwise I recommend this in the hope of saving your time in multiple downloading and testing: Ubuntu Mate - https://ubuntu-mate.org/.

Ubuntu Mate's Software Boutique

Ubuntu Mate seem to look good, has Software Boutique for software installation e.g Google Chrome, software updater for updates or ease of future maintenance - This can be an important consideration because of impermanence.

Conclusion

Choose Ubuntu Mate, if you system is good enough to support it, and even say an old notebook with more than 1GB ram e.g. 1GB ram is not too fast but probably still acceptable. Lesser than 1 GB ram slower machine, please consider Lubuntu. Be aware that Ubuntu Mate's appearance looks better and installs Chrome with Software Boutique but Lubuntu may only install Chromium via GUI.

Also worth mentioning are Fedora and Puppy Linux and PCLinuxOS. But I'd probably advise not to dwindle in these unless hardware drivers are issues with Ubuntu-based Linux. Remember my goal is to help beginners or anyone save time and effort, thus Ubuntu. Even the Redhat-backed Fedora does not seem to measure up to Ubuntu in its offerings.

How to install by creating a Live Usb drive after downloading the torrent/iso files?

If you have a Mac, this works: https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Create_a_Live_USB_stick_using_Mac_OS_x.  
(May erase pendrive with Disk Utility with ExFat format and GUID Partition first.)

Creating the Live Usb from a Linux, follow something like this:  http://askubuntu.com/questions/372607/how-to-create-a-bootable-ubuntu-usb-flash-drive-from-terminal

Windows: https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows