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The nice thing in your situation, is that you're not already addicted to payware for this situation. Once they hook you, quitting the habit is nearly impossible for many folks.

Trust me, I'm pretty hooked. But I'm willing to give it a try...
Would you believe I've already bought a few books about linux, and only last month I bought a local computer magazine special all about Linux which included Suse 10.2 (I know 10.3 has been released by now). I've also already downloaded Suse 10.0 to my PC once, ready to install... where it has remained ever since because the water turned out to be too deep after all.

You have to understand my situation. I'm what I would call the 'family, friend and collegues' PC consultant', so I have to deal with fixing (windows) PC's quite a lot. Then, when I turn on my own pc, I just want it to work, without having to fiddle with it. (I don't mean because Linux need a lot of fiddling with, but because my experience with it is zero)

I'm not alone in this situation. I know for a fact that most of my Pc-savvy friends would also be willing to give it a try, but I know them, they are just waiting for me to cave in first, so I could then tackle all the essential first-timer problems on my own and they could take advantage of my freshly-gained knowledge. (damn then! )

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For your situation, there are a few Linux operating systems ("distributions") that can do the job.

I know. This is also one of the advantages with Linux, which works against it when it comes to 'converting newcomers', I'm sure. I know, so many personal tastes, so many Linux flavours, but it only makes it more difficult for newcomers...

I had already worked out that GNOME was not the best choice to make, so I wanted to use KDE. (even though GNOME comes with most of the software I'm used to currently, like Firefox eg., but I'm sure those apps will run fine on KDE as well). So when I choose an out-of-the-box solution, there's really only Suse and Kubuntu to choose from. (well, when it comes to the 'big distro names anyway) Since Kubuntu is still the 'little brother' of Ubuntu, I had already decided I was going to go with Suse.

So you see, I had already planned this phase coming into my life on day. It might as well be now.