It's 2 downloads for Ubuntu. The OS and Rufus(there are other programs that can do it) to package the thumbdrive. I did have to restart the system using windows recovery to get it to boot from USB. Did it today during a lazy afternoon. Nuked windy completely. Working flawlessly so far on my "sunsetted" surface tablet. Its just a straight up desktop you can do whatever you want with. You don't have to touch the scary terminal unless you want to
If you have ever installed windows from scratch you can throw on a Linux distro. Just back anything up you want to keep.