i am thinking of having linux installed.Which is the "best" to use with maya (no renderfarm etc)?
The best really depends on how linux savy you are and just plain old personal preference. A good mix of the two which is easy to install would be Ubuntu or Kubuntu.
Personally I love Arch. It is the only Linux I've used that I have been able to use Maya effectively with. The wiki has a how-to for installing it too.http://archlinux.org/http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MayaArch will take some time to learn, but the result is a speedy unbloated os. If you are a beginner, I believe some have had success using Maya on Ubuntu, which is a more user friendly distro.
Personally, I think Ubuntu is the most user friendly.