[Golden Eagle]

Stupid question but is Linux just like Windows in the way it looks and operates?

Linux is a foreign clone of Unix products, not Windows. Therefore it's natively more like Apple's OSX, although some foreign cloners have built a couple of versions that look exactly like Windows, but probably you won't see those here in the states due to threat of lawsuit.

[N3WBI3]

In point of fact Linux can look like anything you want it to look like. And there is little risk of MS suing a distribution for looking and feeling like windows given their own history at borrowing interface ideas from other companies.

Windows

OSX

Or anything you want it to look like