I was playing around with Linux back when Mandrake and Red Hate was the Linux thing. Then World of Warcraft came out and I went back to Window. Around 4 years ago one of the guys on my crew was telling me about Ubuntu Linux and I gave it a try. Since then I became a full time Linux user. Its a lot easier than it use to be. Any time I have to go to terminal there is always something that spells out exactly what needs to be typed and I usually just use copy and paste in terminal.
The last time I had to use terminal was a few months ago when someone came up with a work around for Iphones. With Windows you have to upload your phone to the "cloud" in order to access you phone pictures. Not with Linux. I hook up the charge cable, click an icon and select download. Then download the pictures i want. I can delete the photo's from my phone too. No Cloud needed!
This is what my desk top looks like with the menu opened. No clutter, no mess.