The CCCC Linux SIG has used Mepis and Xandros, both Debian based. Mepis installs easily, runs well on modest hardware and comes with some of the non free stuff you ask for. I'd recommend it to any newbie who does not need to deal with M$ stuff.
I have given Mepis to two of my neighbors. Both of them love it and have had zero upkeep issues. Well, one forgot his passwords, so I installed it again. Xandros is also a nice distro which plays well with Windoze junk. The other machine went to a former Mac person who "hates computers". A recent article on Slashdot about the "perfect desktop" details ways to make Mepis do Skype, play DVDs and a few other nice things. I have less experience with Xandors, but it looks slick and installs just as easily as Mepis does. One of it's great strengths is the ability to run Microsoft stuff. The Open Circulation edition comes with Cross Over Office, from which you can run IE and other horrors. When your IE gets craped out, you can simply re-image it. The pay version, I think, comes with Win4Lin which runs the whole stinking M$ OS in an X window. Because it's really Debian, you have everything Mepis does. Ed can tell you more about Xandros. The low effort and cost solution is Mepis and you might want to try it first. You can run it off the CD to make sure it will work before you bother with an install. It works just fine on 400 MHz K6/2. My wife, by the way, uses straight Sarge and is very happy with it because KDE and Mozilla rock.
