What version of linux

[Mortamer]

I have redhat on one of my computers now to test and I thought it was pretty good, but I dont want to use something thats not going to be updated so I figured I'd switch. I don't know that much about linux but I plan on learning C++ in a little while so it might be good to know. What I'm asking is what version would be suitable for someone coming from red hat without that much linux experience? Is their any distro thats pretty close to redhat? I tried Mandrake but people say that its not good for C++ among other things so I uninstalled it.