Could you start by not referring to Microsft as M$? People dont like having something they use / know insulted. It makes the defensive. Often aggravated. Never a good first step.

Best thread ever on the subject of bringing people to Linux Smartboyathomes : One of Linux's biggest lessons: Don't preach, mention - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=865750

Loved Mandy myself, its what got me into Linux many moons ago ^^ Not havin much luck with recent version though :(

I found Gentoo generally taught me the Gentoo way of doing things. Once i was setup i just repeated the same few commands over and over and got bored snot-less of compiling for the sake of milliseconds of my time. :P

Different people different tastes and different learning routines though i guess :) Each to their own :)

Most Linux OS's dont need hardware drivers to be installed (except graphics cards). If you remove then reinstall windows you will need to install drivers again.

Try posting your laptops exact name or the hardware in it here, someone should be able to tell you if it works fine with Linux.

Also, try a live CD. That way you dont actually need to install anything on your PC and nothing changes.

I would also say Puppy. Awesome distro works on nearly anything old.

http://www.puppylinux.com/

Motherboard : Gigabyte GA-MA790X
Processor : AMD 6000+ 3.1GHZ
Ram : 8GB Black Dragon Ram
Graphics Card : GeForce 9800 GTX
Power Supply : 900 Watt Supply
Case : Lian Li Midi
Black Lite On DVD / CD re write drive.

2 Hard drives:

Drive one : 160GB Seagate

30 gb – Windows XP
30 gb – Flavour of the month
100 gb – Xubuntu 9.04

Drive two : 320GB Hitatchi

320 gb Xubuntu 9.04

Second Life is still my fave linux native game :)