Not sure what flavor of Linux you have or how old but most recent flavors of Linux have good GUI's so you don't have to run anything from a command line unless you want to. Like someone else pointed out Ubuntu works great out of the box but so does Mint. All you have to do is update them once in awhile and all updates for all programs and the OS come through one channel which makes it so much easier to update everything.
For people starting on Linux, I like to install the latest Long-Term-Service version of Lubuntu on their machines. It's just a lighter desktop version of Ubuntu that runs a similar desktop environment to Windows XP/7 so it's easier for people to transition to Linux. And like what someone else posted there are so many free programs to download that you can almost do anything in Linux that you can do in Windows. Once I've installed Lubuntu for family/friends, and they keep them updated, I rarely hear back from them and it's usually only minor issues.
CGato
Sample of my Linux problem:
Laptop has latest Linux Mint. I tried watch some of the recent playoff/sports events. FoxSportsGO and ESPNGO. Every time I try to load, they return an error — Flash Update needed. I go to Adobe.com and it has 4 different Linux flavors for Flash.
I have tried this through the old Komander browser, Cromium, Firefox and Firefox ESR. Same results: update Flash needed.
I did a command line Flash update. Computer says it has the latest Flash, but none of the 4 browsers recognize it.
At that point, my frustration level is enough to close the lid and open the Dell Win7 Laptop, load the website and watch the event.