Ubuntu is pretty good, but I prefer Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop. It's a bit faster, and you still get the terrific package-manager from Ubuntu. I don't know about you, but I do NOT like spending a lot of time figuring out different versions of packages, and making sure everything works together correctly. The Ubuntu-style package managers beat the Red Hat style package managers hollow in this regard. There's no competition. If you want to simply get going and start computing, go with a Debian/Ubuntu-derived distro like Ubuntu or Linux Mint. I recommend burning your .iso file to a USB stick, and then boot from it live and try it out. This process doesn't alter your hard drive at all. Once you've connected to the Internet, you can install whenever you're ready. Or if you don't like the distro, you can power down, and your original OS is still completely intact. This is called "booting live" into Linux. You can "install software", and do all sorts of things, but it's only in RAM, and it isn't touching your hard drive.
WARNING: the Achilles heel of Linux is printing. Make sure you can install and print a pdf file to your printer, not just a text file, and that it comes out satisfactorily before you install. That is, do this test in the live boot.
MINOR WARNING: while the graphical user interface in Linux is really quite slick now, there are times when you'll need to fire up a terminal, and be comfortable typing in commands. Google is your friend here.
Linux has really quite good alternative software for almost anything you'd want to run, ranging from Accountable2You for accountability to LibreOffice for an office suite. LibreOffice is almost as good as MS Office. I have a fair bit of experience with Linux, so feel free to ask me questions. Or you can also sign up for Ask Ubuntu, which is a great Q&A site for all Ubuntu-related Linux distributions (always abbreviated "distro" in the Linux world).
I have to stick with Windows mainly because my job involves a lot of LabVIEW programming, and the Linux drivers are incomplete. However, National Instruments has, in the last few years, switched their real-time controllers in the cRIO platform to their own home-grown Linux distro, which is a great move for them. So I need to know Linux, but I don't use it every day. But I digress.
I love Linux, and kind of wish I could do everything in it. Interestingly, Windows 10 just put a full Ubuntu bash shell running inside! I find that a very interesting move - one of the first VERY public acknowledgements by MS that Linux exists and is valuable (though I doubt not but that MS runs a very large number of Linux servers). Linux dominates the server world, is extremely common in the smartphone world (Android is based on Linux), and even shows up in other places you wouldn't expect like embedded devices (Internet of Things) and Apple computers (the Mac OS is based on Linux now). In terms of sheer number of devices, Linux probably runs on more devices than Windows, even. Windows still has market dominance in the desktop/laptop computer world.
