Linux looks to me to be a huge learning curve for a user that just wants the beast to work.
Depends what you want to do, Mr R. If you are browsing, word processing, emailing, in fact, anything that is not playing Windows based games, it really is a doddle. Even the latter is achieveable but needs a bit more thought. If you just want 'a beast that works' I would second Stanron's recommendation of Mint. It is just Windows that work :-)
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sj