It's not Linux that's confusing, it's the choice of Window managers. RH7.1 runs the same kernel as MDK8, it's the WAY that MDK8 runs the installer, and the (11) choices of desktop/window managers. If you can manipulate X to run Gnome, KDE, Ice, whatever, then you're doing just fine, and you won't find any diff trying to use MDK8, Caldera, RH, Debian, etc., OTHER THAN the specific (small) differences between them. Newbies like MDK8 because it's easy to install, it's easy to configure (mostly automatic), it's easy to get devices running (modems, NICs, etc.), and it's supremely easy to get to a GUI. RH7.1 runs in second place for ease of install/use, and the others fall behind rapidly after that.
If you want a second OS to play with, learn a bit about, and enjoy this sort of thing (dual/multi-booting, "tecchy" stuff), then MDK8 or RH7.1 is perfect.
If you want to completely rid yourself of the Microsoft monopoly, then they're good to start with, get your feet wet, but you'll want a more challenging and stimulating distro soon after.
Don't get me wrong, MDK8 has everything (and then some!) that all the other distros have, it's just put together in a nice (MS Windows-like) GUI package, which makes it somewhat bloated and slow. Once you've gotten into the real workings of it, a reinstall, with ONLY the specific packages YOU want (who needs 11 desktop window managers, 27 gazillion games/puzzles/toys, 3 CD burning progs, etc.) will streamline it considerably, and speed things up at the same time. (A fully bloated install of MDK8 still takes up less space than Win98!)
It's kind of like shutting off all the extraneous processes in Win2k. Who needs most of them anyhow?
As for reliability/stability/compatibility, who can complain? Where else are you going to get an OS, with this much power (can you say Apache or Bastille?) for absolutely NOTHING!, except the time to download it? Cheers,
Jim