A little over a year ago I slapped a computer together for my mom using spare parts I had laying around. I installed Ubuntu on it, pointed out a few things and let her go. She really didn't have any problems and I can assure you she's far less savvy than you. I don't find it's normal for the average user to need to use the command line.

The only problem that I would anticipate you having is with your wireless card. The majority of laptops seem to use Broadcom wireless these days and Broadcom has gone out of their way to not support open source. Reverse engineering has yielded solid drivers for some Broadcom chips, but others are still not usable.

I took a quick look at Mint a little while back. It didn't look too shabby but I can't really say much, as I didn't spend enough time with it.

I would recommend against the dual-boot option. It sounds like a great idea, but it can leave your system in a rather strange state if you later try to remove Linux. Use the LiveCD option to try it out instead. The LiveCD won't touch your hard drive so if you don't like what you see, it's as simple as throwing the CD out and you're back to where you are now. The downside of the LiveCD is it will be a bit slow and any changes you make will be lost upon shutdown. If you've got the Windows install disc, I think you're better off just wiping Windows out. If you dislike Linux, you can reinstall Windows. The fresh install might solve a number of your problems anyway.

Keeping the programs that came with Windows is a no-no. In most cases you'll want to find replacements for them instead. Here's a few suggestions:

MS Office -> OpenOffice.org (comes with Ubuntu)
Instant Messaging -> Pidgin (comes with Ubuntu)
Web Browser -> Firefox (comes with Ubuntu), Opera, SeaMonkey
Outlook Express or Windows Mail -> Thunderbird, SeaMonkey

As arvana mentioned above, most Linux distributions come with a package management system now. This means you won't generally go to a website to download a program that you want. Instead you'll go into (in the case of Ubuntu) Synaptic Package Manager and select the program you want. The system will take care of retrieving and installing it.

One last piece of advice: The number of choices available to you when going Linux will be overwhelming. Desktop environments, window managers, composition rendering... there are a dozen options for damn near anything you want to do. Don't let it worry you. Just pick one and go with it. Until you've got a bit of experience, you're not going to be able to make a meaningful decision... and in some cases you still won't a couple years later.

That's why I normally drink siphoned anti-freeze from cars at the Chinese restaurant. Best buzz is a free buzz, I always say.

In reply to this comment by E_Nygma:
figures. it's pretty pricey at "thirty twice".

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
I know! But the judge didn't buy it.

In reply to this comment by E_Nygma:
the name seems to encourage drinking and driving...

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
Yeah, me too, but my kid gets tired of them after a while. On those nights I just give him a little extra Thunderbird to get him to sleep.

In reply to this comment by E_Nygma:
i love chinese leftovers!

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
You wouldn't be envious if you saw how I lived, unless living in a dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant sounds appealing to you.

In reply to this comment by E_Nygma:
It boggles my mind how you have sifted so many videos and become such an integral member of this community in such a short time. I am envious, thankful, and wasted.

figures. it's pretty pricey at "thirty twice".

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
I know! But the judge didn't buy it.

In reply to this comment by E_Nygma:
the name seems to encourage drinking and driving...

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
Yeah, me too, but my kid gets tired of them after a while. On those nights I just give him a little extra Thunderbird to get him to sleep.

In reply to this comment by E_Nygma:
i love chinese leftovers!

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
You wouldn't be envious if you saw how I lived, unless living in a dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant sounds appealing to you.

In reply to this comment by E_Nygma:
It boggles my mind how you have sifted so many videos and become such an integral member of this community in such a short time. I am envious, thankful, and wasted.

I know! But the judge didn't buy it.

In reply to this comment by E_Nygma:
the name seems to encourage drinking and driving...

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
Yeah, me too, but my kid gets tired of them after a while. On those nights I just give him a little extra Thunderbird to get him to sleep.

In reply to this comment by E_Nygma:
i love chinese leftovers!

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
You wouldn't be envious if you saw how I lived, unless living in a dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant sounds appealing to you.

In reply to this comment by E_Nygma:
It boggles my mind how you have sifted so many videos and become such an integral member of this community in such a short time. I am envious, thankful, and wasted.

the name seems to encourage drinking and driving...

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
Yeah, me too, but my kid gets tired of them after a while. On those nights I just give him a little extra Thunderbird to get him to sleep.

In reply to this comment by E_Nygma:
i love chinese leftovers!

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
You wouldn't be envious if you saw how I lived, unless living in a dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant sounds appealing to you.

In reply to this comment by E_Nygma:
It boggles my mind how you have sifted so many videos and become such an integral member of this community in such a short time. I am envious, thankful, and wasted.

Yeah, me too, but my kid gets tired of them after a while. On those nights I just give him a little extra Thunderbird to get him to sleep.

In reply to this comment by E_Nygma:
i love chinese leftovers!

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
You wouldn't be envious if you saw how I lived, unless living in a dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant sounds appealing to you.

In reply to this comment by E_Nygma:
It boggles my mind how you have sifted so many videos and become such an integral member of this community in such a short time. I am envious, thankful, and wasted.

That's a great idea but cybrbeast has a good point about more time or us manually setting it. Thunderbird I think defaults to 10 minutes between message checks and that might leave little time to get the message and requeue. I'd guess other programs would commonly run in a 10-15 minute range as well.

I was waiting for the rope to break and the metal ring on the end to come flying through the back window of the thunderbird!!!

I think its only decrepitude if you drink them regularly... sadly, I have tried none of them, and my beloved Boone's Farm is not considered a Bum Wine *sniff*.

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
I had the same reaction when I first discovered the site too. The sad thing is, I've had 3 out of 5 of the Big Five they listed: Night Train, MD 20/20, and Thunderbird. I'm just 2 wines away from decrepitude. I guess I better go shopping for refrigerator boxes soon.

In reply to this comment by raven:
thanks for the link to bumwine.com... best laugh I've had over the internets in a while!

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
^"...well-developed shirk ethic..."

Priceless. Give that man a Siftie, goddammit!

PS: Is there an award for the sifter whose name appears most often in the award categories BESIDES dag? (Mmmhmm...ME!) Hey, selfish-bastardism is a hallmark of the Sift. I'm not immune. If I can't get a t-shirt, do you have VideoSift thong bikini? I wouldn't mind wearing it and dancing around in front of a floor-length mirror. (Sorry, joedirt. Don't mean to bring back any traumatic memories.)

Man, the Thunderbird is really starting to kick in. G'night.

I had the same reaction when I first discovered the site too. The sad thing is, I've had 3 out of 5 of the Big Five they listed: Night Train, MD 20/20, and Thunderbird. I'm just 2 wines away from decrepitude. I guess I better go shopping for refrigerator boxes soon.

In reply to this comment by raven:
thanks for the link to bumwine.com... best laugh I've had over the internets in a while!

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
^"...well-developed shirk ethic..."

Priceless. Give that man a Siftie, goddammit!

PS: Is there an award for the sifter whose name appears most often in the award categories BESIDES dag? (Mmmhmm...ME!) Hey, selfish-bastardism is a hallmark of the Sift. I'm not immune. If I can't get a t-shirt, do you have VideoSift thong bikini? I wouldn't mind wearing it and dancing around in front of a floor-length mirror. (Sorry, joedirt. Don't mean to bring back any traumatic memories.)

Man, the Thunderbird is really starting to kick in. G'night.

thanks for the link to bumwine.com... best laugh I've had over the internets in a while!

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
^"...well-developed shirk ethic..."

Priceless. Give that man a Siftie, goddammit!

PS: Is there an award for the sifter whose name appears most often in the award categories BESIDES dag? (Mmmhmm...ME!) Hey, selfish-bastardism is a hallmark of the Sift. I'm not immune. If I can't get a t-shirt, do you have VideoSift thong bikini? I wouldn't mind wearing it and dancing around in front of a floor-length mirror. (Sorry, joedirt. Don't mean to bring back any traumatic memories.)

Man, the Thunderbird is really starting to kick in. G'night.

^"...well-developed shirk ethic..."

Priceless. Give that man a Siftie, goddammit!

PS: Is there an award for the sifter whose name appears most often in the award categories BESIDES dag? (Mmmhmm...ME!) Hey, selfish-bastardism is a hallmark of the Sift. I'm not immune. If I can't get a t-shirt, do you have VideoSift thong bikini? I wouldn't mind wearing it and dancing around in front of a floor-length mirror. (Sorry, joedirt. Don't mean to bring back any traumatic memories.)

Man, the Thunderbird is really starting to kick in. G'night.

gmail rules, and even if I'm totally paranoid, I've uploaded to them YEARS of corrispondence anyway. Why? Well, because it's so good. At least, it's so good compared to Mail.app and Thunderbird.

but I'm starting to getting annoyed by google policy of "we don't really care about suggestions", and I'm considering trying Thunderbird again, especially now that gmail supports IMAP too.

I've been that drunk before when visiting my wine cellar. That's why when I'm entertaining I always keep a couple of bottles of Thunderbird in the refrigerator.

"The proportions are all over the place."

Yeah, and Megatron's two story body transforming into a P38 pistol that fits into Starscream's hand is much better. Along with Optimus's disappearing trailer.

I'm a fan of G1 myself, but this movie still looks awesome. Be glad they understand their target audience is in their 20's (as opposed to TMNT and Thunderbirds... the people who watched them as kids are now in their teens and 40's, respectively, and yet they make kiddy movies out of both of them).