I recently switched my system running windows XP to Ubuntu Unity 12.04 and I did encounter a small learning curve that was overcome with all the documentation and user forums available. I have been running it now for probably 3+ months and I personally like it much better than my old XP, it is much faster, cleaner to keep updated, and very user friendly. If it were not the fact the XP support was going to be discontinued I would have still been running XP.
Check out the
Ubuntu Forums on how to create a bootable CD... it not all that difficult.
I strongly recommend at least give it a try, it can be run concurrently with your XP system.