Fwiw, I'd say put him on FedoraKDE or Mint. Mint is the classic beginner distro now that Ubuntu has lost favor, and I just have a thing for Fedora, but it's a popular distro with plenty of help available and KDE feels pretty windows-y (or windows stole from KDE but who's counting.)
Thanks, I'll check them out. I've heard mint a few times as a good beginner distro. I'll probably dual boot my PC on whatever I am gonna recommend him for a bit so I get my bearings and can support him a bit :)