The easiest way to get to know linux is to find the linux versions of applications you already use in windows. You may be surprised, a lot of the popular programs in windows started out in linux and were ported over like GIMP. Also some programs with different names than their windows equivalents (often a fork or open source version of the originals) have an interface very much like the windows ones. Another thing that helps is to get a friendly distro like ubuntu linux or mint that has the built in tools to keep installing things straight.
