Go with Linux Mint 16, it's much more 'newbie friendly" than Ubuntu is. If you have a quad core go with or mint 17 or 17.1 'cause it's a bit sluggish on Core2Duo or below.
Use the KDE or LXDE versions rather than Cinnamon or MATE first off. But they all have a 'Live' DVD so you can try the it before installing.
You will not regret dropping Windows, it's not like losing an OS, more of gaining hundreds of very handy tools that Windows should have but would cost a small fortune to install.
No anti virus necessary 'cause they can't install without getting your permission.
No 'spyware' drive-by installs.
No "additional features" that you have to watch out for during installations.
No rebooting because something you didn't know you had has 'updated'.
One application does only one thing ... But does it well and does it correctly. But if you don't like one application's "look and feel" ... ... There are at least three more that are equally as useful, but different.
No more needing a "search indexer" using resources indexing things you will probably NEVER bother searching for, grep and egrep will find any word(s) quicker than you can check the options in Windows Search.
Install "Thunar" as the default file manager, it comes with the best damned renaming tool built in that I've ever used in a file manager, and if you need something that can handle multiple renaming patterns and sub-folders Metamorphose2 does that.
Use Claws Mail instead of the default ThunderBird, you can install and configure a SpamAssassin plugin that can make spam a thing you used to see and spend an hour or more a day deleting it.
Run a server? SSH, SCP and FTP direct from a terminal window (PuTTY free).
Anything you are not sure of just ask ... I dumped Windows completely about three years.