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You should be careful with questions like these, as you might be branded as a flamer (some who posts simply to spark controversy). The reality is that Linux is such a versatile OS, and so customizable, that you can't answer the question "Which is the best Linux distribution". You have to ask, "what is the best distribution for such-and-such purposes?" The answer will also depend on information like "What is your level of technical proficiency?", as some setups might provide better performance and functionality, but be more difficult to install and configure. Nearly all Linux OSes are compatible with photo editing programs, once you install the correct software and libraries. I personally have found Debian to be the most stable distribution; but the trade off is that they do a slow release cycle and a lot of testing -- meaning you won't always have the "bleeding edge" packages unless you switch to an unstable repository. It's also very easy to build Debian from a minimalistic system into what you want it to be. As regarding the playing videos issue: Would you be willing to tell us what video player you tried to use, and what error message you received? Then we can probably help you fix that. Also, are you familiar with libdvdcss2? No Linux can play encrypted videos (most commercial videos) without a library to decrypt it. And most mainstream distributions don't include one in their official repositories for legal or political reasons. (But it isn't hard to get one.) Side note: I've never used it, but someone I know spoke pretty well of DreamLinux: http://www.dreamlinux.com.br/. He said it came with most necessary media codecs and drivers "out-of-the-box", and it looked like an attractive distribution.

PerlCoder (http://indicium.us)