Ubuntu is probably the best Linux distro. You can use an interface like Windows or there are a few custom GUI's for it.
I tried to switch to it myself but could not find alternative programs to the ones I use all the time in Windows, even using Wine which runs windows programs within linux.
theres damn small linux as well , maybe not as supported as ubuntu but its err damn small, i think 55 meg install
for any newbie to linux the most important thing is to use genric hardware, linux will run on most hardware but i like to use weird and wonderful machines to run stuff like point of sales thin clients which linux doesnt always like.