HP Pavilion needs distro recommendation (and install guidance)

HP Pavilion dv6500 Notebook PC Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 @ 1.5GHz 2GB RAM Hitachi 500GB HDD Windows Vista What distro would you recommend? Can this be done with a USB or will a DVD be necessary? I want to save it from ewaste because it has a ridiculous number of ports on the sides.