Greetings.
Been playing around with LFS (Linux From Scratch) a bit, and I'd recommend it, for Linux beginners. Building your own Linux distribution from source is an excellent way to learn how Linux works. After LFS, you can continue on with BLFS (Beyond LFS) and install Xfree, and a Window manager of your choice, along with various networking protocols.
Other versions are BELFS (Bleeding Edge LFS), and ALFS (Automated LFS), which is a series of scripts, to automate the build/install process.
In development is HLFS (Hardened LFS) which is supposed to be focused on security.
They're also working on a CD-Bootable distribution, presumably to make building your own easier, because all the proper tools are included, minus the proprietary mess from a distro.
Give it a look.
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
Enjoy!