I love Linux, which is apparently not how likewhateverman feels. Nevertheless I agree with him, more or less.
I believe anyone who wants to use Linux because they hate Windows -- should use a Mac. End of story. Linux is for people who want to take full responsibility for the files they create and for what they do on their computers. Windows defaults to the idea that you do not know what you want to do on your computer, and will provide stopgaps to keep you from doing things Linux absolutely will not. Despite the fact there are two levels of privilege, user and root or administrator, deleting your OS is almost the easiest thing to do there is, and no, the system will NOT ask you "Are you Sure?"
You might TRY Linux. There is something called a Live CD which you can boot from and you don't HAVE to install Because the CD and DVD drives are slower than hard drives it is a little slower than running it from disk. Actually it mostly loads into memory. You will find some familiar programs (though perhaps with strange names). Firefox is a descendant of NetScape. Which originated on UNIX. I first used Linux when my college told me there was this great program called a web browser in that computer lab. Yep. We had web browsers first. Also three-dee desktops. Linux is a platform where it is very cheap to try out new ideas -- the XO Laptops (One Laptop Per Child Project) run something they call Sugar older nerds call streams and Bill Gates hates because it's a windowing OS with no desktop. Streams are an awesome paradigm. With a live CD you can try this out -- or any strange new world. You can also try out some more familiar things. Then reboot and go back to Windows. Some people fall in love with it. If that's you, fine. If not, Live CDs are a safe way to find out because they don't require any real commitment.
First suggestion (most normal: PC LinuxOS:
http://www.pclinuxos.com/
It's based on Mandriva, which has always been more popular in Europe than here in the US, but you should be able to recognize most of the programs.
Another European distribution is Knoppix, which is actually tech oriented. It was created by a German Computer Consultant named Klaus Knopper for his personal use when making house calls. It popularized Live CDs because it works on such a wide variety of hardware out of the box.It's closely based on Debian (and you can install Debian Linux using it) which leads to the one peculiarity: Debian has permission to distribute the code for Firefox. They do not have permission to use the name or logo for Firefox, so it's called Iceweasel. Since Knopper is just one man, he can't, unlike Shuttleworth the man behind Ubuntu, afford to settle with them for the use of their copyrighted material, so you can surf the net with IceWeasel, if you have ever used firefox. You can type letters with OpenOffice.org, and even play solitaire with ace of penguins. It does have technical tools available, but if you aren't interested they won't get in your way:
http://www.knoppix.com
Finally, the guys behind the GPL which is the license Linux is distributed under, have a couple of OSes they support. One of them is essentially Ubuntu. With one difference. ALL the packages in it are free and open source. It's actually a propaganda tool. Since they are also awesome engineers, it's a live CD which runs almost as well or better than Knoppix, and better than any version of Ubuntu except an installed one. You just have to get used to these strange package names, and to lectures about the evils of proprietary software in almost every help file.
http://www.gnewsense.org/static/homepage/
Installing Linux before you know what it is is a mistake. It's not one I made, but a lot of people around here have. Don't do it. Trying it, using a live CD is not.
Download an ISO file and burn it to disk:
http://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto
Reboot the computer and if necessary, set the bios to boot from the CD. You'll be on your way.