I would strongly recommend not switching to any form of *nix( BSD,
Linux, etc. ) unless you are very comfortable reading and applying
howto documents, and decently comfortable working in a DOS-like
environment for basic system changes.

A couple examples of may-be-not-so-easy-for-a-noobie-ness.
I recently installed KUbuntu( KDE-focused Ubuntu ), and had to go
through several command-line steps to get my NTFS drives( dual-booting
ubuntu/xp-pro ) accessible in ubuntu. Basically installing the 3rd
generation NTFS drivers which are only able to be installed if you
manually edit the package-source-url file.
Another little command-line process I had to endure was setting up a
program( rdp through ssh ) so that I could securely access my linux(
slackware ) server, and use my directory on the server as if it were
on my desktop system( kubuntu ).

Sudhir