Getting a desktop that looks like XP isn't going to make Linux much easier or harder. All the desktop is is the GUI, the menus and how pointing and clicking and stuff is handled, and especially the appearence. Configuring the desktop to make it look exactly how you want is one of my favorite things about Linux, and a newbie can surely do that much right off the bat. The internals are the same whether you use the XP desktop, KDE, Gnome, or whatever. But I think you might be missing out on alot if you just try to make everything in Linux be like windows. So try out KDE, thats my favorite desktop, try it with Mandrake, Red Hat, Suse, Lycrosis, or somthing. And Linux isn't that hard, don't be intimidated. Just does things differently sometimes, and it takes a little getting used to.
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