Linux is a bigger pain in the ass than Windows. Enjoy typing in a command line interface? You’ll be doing a fair bit of that.
Used to be the case that you could feel personal pride at getting a linux system to run at all but not been the case that you will need to spend any time on command line for some years. Ubuntu and Mint are positively user friendly.
Currently running 1 Win7 setup, 2 dual boot Win7/Ubuntu setups, a Win RT tablet, a Linux Mint desktop and a Ubuntu laptop. Over and above the Windows OS, not running any software I have paid for on any of them, a legacy of discovering open source when I first used Linux some 10 years ago.
If you filter out some of the more extreme its brill, its crap offerings above then a lot of what is said is fair and good sense. Getting it running on a desktop is easier, but there are places to find if your laptop is supported ( my 8 year old Dell laptop is despite using an almost unique wireless card ). You can download or purchase for a few quid a live CD with every bit of software you will ever need on it and run it off the CD or a USB stick to see if it works for you. I have never regretted using it and I have saved a fortune over the years.