I'd be happy to give a more complete comment, and maybe some other help or direction if you shoot me an email thomas dot mccullough at gmail dot com

I get the impression that you don't want to spend too long fiddling with the Linux install. Ubuntu makes for a pretty simple install. It's boot time is significantly slower than alot of the other minimalistic distros, but it might be what you want if you are looking for foolproof installation. The linux community as a whole is supportive if you run into some roadblocks. As indicated elsewhere, Ubuntu might not be good if the hardware is too old.