I love open source, I highly recommend it.
Be sure you do plenty of research on your hardware compatibility though! That was something I did not do thoroughly and have paid for it (initial post).
I personally like Zenwalk more than any of the *buntus (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, etc...) for the reason that it is lighter, faster, and is better optimized for the desktop. Only issues though, were my hardware compatibility.
For a very easy install I suggest installing Xubuntu because it is faster than Ubuntu (Xubuntu uses Xfce whereas Ubuntu uses Gnome, latter being much heavier).
My experience with linux on a desktop workstation is extremely positive, it worked with all of my hardware and worked well. Laptops can be an issue though, like I said check out your hardware compatibility. If you are buying a new one, buy from a Linux laptop distributor (
System76, some others, but can't remember).
What are the benefits? First and foremost, you learn alot about using the command line and about how things work. Open source applications and file formats beat anything proprietary by a long shot - the idea is you can use what you want to use without restriction. It is generally a fun community too, just be sure to RTFM before posting a silly question because the majority of help is definitely in the manual on setting things up properly; google is extremely useful too in being able to find an error that other users got and solved.