I completely agree.
I was reading this thread, and was just about to decide to suggest he simply put Ubuntu on the machine, and he would be back up 100%.
Now it is a (bit) different from Windows, but not entirely so.
And he could be up 100% in about two hours, complete.
Just make sure you’re ready to change, because it is not Windows.
You will not be able to go back, once you change to Ubuntu, but the change is 100% free.
Some computer knowledge is very helpful
I ran Ubuntu at home for about 10 years. Nothing fancy, but I used it on my home pc.
I now am not, but it was good. I liked it.
Some may not.
I set up Red Hat 5.2 iptables so that I could connect to Verizon DSL with a static IP back in late 1998. And I was a home user. I didn't change until they took my static IP away. I did everything on Linux by searching the web and doing a lot of copy and paste. It's easy now. The distributions do almost everything for you.