Linux has gone a long way
Today on most hardware you simply install your modern (k)ubuntu distribution and after one reboot you're left with a fully functional system. There's no need for endless install orgys where you pop in CD after CD, and if you make a mistake, you'll have to start all over again.
Even the hardware support has gone a long way from what people are used with Windows. At work we had 2 workstations, a normal Kubuntu 8.10 one, and a Windows Vista (32 Bit) one. We got 5 random USB devices. 4 of them conformed to standard USB classes and therefore should run on any OS. One was a proprietary WLAN USB stick. The standard devices were a USB->Serial adapter, a USB->ethernet adaptor and an USB->Bluetooth adaptor. All of them, even the proprietary WLAN stick worked as soon as you plugged them in under Linux. _None_ of them worked out of the box on Windows Vista!
So unless you are prepared to get lots of support calls talking users through the process of installing drivers for hardware without having a CD-Rom drive, you might consider giving Linux a try.