Just install Ubuntu if you quite literally cannot grasp GNU/Linux. No, your "guy" is not "relatively skilled", that's an absurd claim when it took an entire week setting up Linux on a laptop. It has never, ever taken me more than an hour or two with mainstream distros, or more than 3 days max. for more complicated distros such as Gentoo or Arch - but the system would be minimally operational within a day, always. You would literally have to one-finger press your keyboard whilst also learning how to read for the first time simultaneously, to make the install of Linux on a LAPTOP last a week.