It sounds like I may be the only one to answer this, that's an IT Tech. I use Ubuntu, and have for a little over four years but, I don't see it as requiring any special skills to use it as a desktop OS. I walked a techtarded girl through installing it, while I was working, on the phone.
The interface doesn't look like Windows but, it makes sense to people. Installing new software is the only problem you see. I've been using Linux for nearly 10 years now and I remember what it was like when I first started trying to load new programs. It's better now but, a lot of software for Ubuntu/Debian GNU will still give you the command lines for install instructions.
Example: I wanted to download Mozilla Thunderbird. I'd open a command terminal and type "sudo apt-get install thunderbird".
I could just open Ubuntu Software Center and go find Thunderbird then install it graphically but, that doesn't always work right and I find it to be a pain when I can use the command line to do it.
A better example: I downloaded Skype and have to install it.
Skype.com's instructions will tell me to open my command line, navigate my way to where I saved it then type something like "sudo dpkg -i skype-debian_10.deb"
All I'd really have to do is go find the folder (in a program that's similar to My Computer) and then double-click it and Ubuntu will install it. I'd probably go with this method, instead of having to type a weird string of code, because Skype gave the file a dumb name, instead of "skype.deb"
Final Summary? It's not that hard and you want to download version 10.04, like everyone else said. I don't care for version 11.10 or 11.04. I'm using version 10.04 (released April 2010) on a laptop that's less than a month old.