I have heard a lot about linux but is it good?

I have read articles talking about "Windows 8 is hell for developers" etc, but is linux a / the better option. (I heard that ubuntu? is popular among people who use linux?)

Is linux a good option?, is it as "user friendly" as they say, or will it make my head explode into 60 million pieces then make me run back to windows.

thanks in advance guys

Install Linux Mint. You can boot off of a usb stick to try it out. 

Slightly confusing to begin with. Drivers are a bit of a pain, and you should familiarise yourself with some of the terminal commands, it does help.

Linux Mint is probably the best option for those just moving to linux. Its debian based.. and really based off of Ubuntu. But it has a different shell ( desktop enviroment ) than Ubuntu that is quite similar to windows. As far as being a pain with drivers.. thats not always necessarily true. Most things will work right out the box of any modern Linux Distro. The only time drivers are a pain is if you have a laptop or wireless card and what not. But usually the generic drivers are enough to get you going. If you have a dedicated GPU you can even use the close source driver under additional drivers which are much better than the generic open source ones. 

As far as being discouraged and running back to Windows goes, I had that experience back in the 90s but it really depends on how easily you are discouraged. There are some Windows-habits that will be challenged and in the process you notice how many things about Windows you just accepted.

I'd also recommend Linux Mint.