I was asked by PM for a link to download GNU/Linux. I think that's a question that's better answered on the public forum because different people can benefit from this information. Since there are many different distros, I will post here the links to the GNU/Linux distros that I personally recommend for general/desktop use, especially for beginning users that want a pretty comfortable but still educational experience.
These distros all have a good support forum in multiple languages, can fall back on an excellent online documentation, and are bleeding edge but very stable and easy-to-use distros that put the focus on ease of use.
I personally think that after an initial jump-start into linux, which will require doing some research to help the users forget some bad habits and false beliefs about how computers work induced by software consoles, part of the process of really getting into linux on an enthusiast level, is to try out different distros, so after that initial exploration, for those that want to learn more about computing, I would definitely recommend getting experience with other distros also, just to know the differences like which package manager is used by which distro, or which other DE's and WM's there are, or to explore distros that are more focused towards the server-side operating environments.
I would therefore also invite other linux users to post links to the torrent downloads of their favorite GNU/Linux distros in posts in this thread, so that in the end, we have a thread full of referral links. Please do not comment or reply to posts in this thread, keep the posts for posting links, so that it is an informational thread. I will remove posts that reply or comment. If you want to discuss a post made in this thread, make a separate thread please. If you post links, make sure to also provide some background info and description of the distro you're posting the torrent link to, for what type of users within the standalone desktop users category you're recommending the distro for, and make sure it's the torrent link, no direct links please, unless you also explain how to perform a hash check. Do not just paste in a link or give a one-liner style "this distro is best" type of description. Descriptions that provide no background, will also be deleted.
I'm pasting the torrent links here. I'm not a big fan of the direct download links. The reasons for that are first of all that a torrent client does an automated hash check of the data integrity, so that you don't have to do that manually afterwards, and the second reason is that it puts less strain on the servers that provide the linux download services, which are all servers that are made available pro bono by various educational or scientific institutions, and I think part of the conscientious and responsible use of open source is to not take these public services for granted and to respect the bandwidth.
Make sure to go into the settings of your torrent client of choice, and set it to "force encryption" or "enable mandatory encryption". That is the only way to prevent a corruption of the data through MIM attacks, and to make sure that you're actually getting what you ask for. It's also a way to prevent download throttling by some agencies or companies.
1. OpenSuSE
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/13.2/iso/openSUSE-13.2-GNOME-Live-x86_64.iso.torrent
This is the live ISO with Gnome. Can be installed after starting it live, can be used as a portable live operating system (unlike the standard link provided on the opensuse.org website), but can (contrary to the standard link provided on the opensuse.org website) not be used to upgrade an existing install.
This is the stable version. It can be easily turned into the development or rolling release version. The info on turning it into the rolling release version (called Tumbleweed) can be found here: https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Tumbleweed. This is fine for users that have Intel or AMD graphics and want to be using the opens ource graphics drivers. It is not advisable for nVidia users because the open source nVidia drivers do not offer a lot of performance (unless you have a really old card like the 9800GT/GTX). The use of Tumbleweed with proprietary graphics drivers from AMD should be no problem going forward because of open source kernel modules, but the use of Tumbleweed with proprietary nVidia drivers is NOT advisable, because it will be a bitch to keep up with the frequent kernel updates that come with a bleeding edge rolling distribution. So if you're on nVidia, stay with the stable release, which is OpenSuSE 13.2, and don't go for Tumbeweed. If you're on Intel or AMD, I would advise switching your initial 13.2 install to Tumbleweed, because it's more bleeding edge and that will bring several important performance and feature benefits, as well as make sure you always have a really up-to-date and secure system that is just as stable as the stable release, but will never need a distro upgrade, it will just always stay current (because it's rolling release). You can also switch to Factory, which is as bleeding edge as things get, and it's still pretty stable, but there might be occasional small inconveniences from time to time.
You'll find non-free software packages like mp3 codecs and stuff in the Pacman-repository, which can be easily added in Yast (the settings GUI for SuSE), add repositories, select "community repositories", and then add the Pacman-repo URL directly if you're on a rolling release version, or select it from the list that is shown there if you're on the stable release version.
2. Manjaro Linux
Manjaro Linux is based on Arch linux, and therefore it's also bleeding edge, but it's also stable and it has it's own repos to filter the new packages from upstream Arch so that there is no breakage when users are updating. Manjaro also adds a lot of ease-of-use and GUI features to Arch, and uses it's own solutions or solutions borrowed from other distros like Linux Mint for instance to complete the user experience, the features, and the ease-of-use.
It's fast and comes with non-free packages like adobe flash player or mp3 codecs preinstalled, and has a dedicated GUI tool to switch to proprietary graphics drivers or switch kernels.
Because it's a rolling release AND has dedicated easy to use GUI tools to switch kernels and graphics drivers, I would recommend this distro especially for users that have nVidia graphics cards, want to use the proprietary nVidia drivers, and still want a bleeding edge distro. Manjaro is unique in that it's the only distro that really offers a user friendly solution for those users. Typically nVidia users are confined to distros based on very old kernels to avoid nVidia proprietary driver problems, but Manjaro offers them easy access to the added performance and features of bleeding edge kernels and packages.
Also a big advantage of Manjaro is that it is AUR compatible, right from the GUI package manager (which offers a front end for both pacman and yaourt). The AUR offers the largest collection of application software in the open source operating system world bar none. The use of the AUR is not covered by the same security guarantees as official repos, so check user comments before installing AUR packages!
http://sourceforge.net/projects/manjarotorrents/files/latest/download?source=files
The standard version is the XFCE version. KDE lovers will find here also the only official release distro that carries KDE 5 by default, which is a bonus.
3. Fedora
Fedora is for those that love a steeper, more motivating, learning curve. It's easy to use, but it comes pretty minimal out of the box, not really minimal, but far less complete with preinstalled application software than the previous two. Fedora is also very strict in refusing non-free packages, and has very strict packaging quality rules, so for instance, Chromium is not allowed in the official Fedora repos. So for Google Chromium lovers, you'll have to compile yourselves, use the packages from OpenSuSE, or just go for OpenSuSE altogether.
Fc21 is a technical bleeding edge distro, the technology under the hood goes a step further than any other distro. You'll find things like alternative compilers, full 3D printer integration, the best Docker and Sandstorm integration (and on the Fedora Cloud version the Atomic server functionality for those that really want to taste the future of software development and marketing), the latest Eclipse packages with the latest plugins, all the latest development, scientific and computational tools, the latest kernels, the latest filesystem features, etc...
It's a distro for engineers, scientists and developers that are really into their game, and know what they want, but at the same time, it's also a very accessible learning platform for people that want to elevate their skills and are really into stuff like that. It's also the community distro that is closest to the reference enterprise GNU/Linux distro, Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Together with SuSE (SLES), RedHat (RHEL) is the distro that pretty much makes the world turn around. These distros, called RPM-distros because they use the "RedHat Package Management" format, are the primary tool that enterprises and organizations use to shape the future of technology and the world. Fedora is also the only community distro (besides AOSP 5 Lollipop that is, but that's not a GNU/Linux distro) that comes out of the box with SELinux working as it should. SELinux is the most advanced mandatory access control system that exists for the moment, and that means that the users can benefit from quite a substantial extra security layer on their systems.
Fc21 (Fc stands for "Fedora core", the download link provided will however give you a full live distro, not just the bare core, it's just common to refer to a Fedora release as "Fc NN") is the most recent release, it's about two months old now, which means that there might still be the occasional rough corner, but nothing to worry about for most users.
To install non-free packages in Fedora, the easiest way is to use Fedy, a community tool that allows a plethora of non-free addidtions in literally seconds by using a very simple GUI (Fedy can be found here: https://satya164.github.io/fedy/).
I would not recommend using Fedora with proprietary graphics drivers. To be perfectly honest, that's asking for trouble. Fedora updates the kernel almost weekly, and provides no official source for proprietary kernel modules. On AMD, it should be easy enough to use the AMD provided installer since there are no binary blobs any more going forward, but especially for nVidia users, you'll face weekly or even biweekly manual kernel module compilings and associated system debuggings to even have a working system.
Fedora Workstation (aka desktop edition) with Gnome can be downloaded here:
http://torrent.fedoraproject.org/torrents/Fedora-Live-Workstation-x86_64-21.torrent