Who knows much about Linux?

[Angrboda]

As always, it depends on what you want to do with it. For general computing, an Ubuntu machine can probably do everything you want. And while they've put all the knobs in different places, a full featured linux distro like Ubuntu has many of the same features as Windows. And there is a ton of free software for linux. Some of it better than windows software. Of course, if there are specific programs that you need to run which have no linux alternative and won't run under wine, that's another matter. (There's always VMs, but given this is a laptop, that's probably not a good solution. Though if you're up for a challenge, you could run a linux VM under Windows.)

My advice would be to download and burn a copy of the Ubuntu Live CD (or the USB flash drive version). Boots fresh into Ubuntu without having to install it, and when you're done, you still have your old laptop back.

The best way I think is just to try it and see if you like it.