Am I just too Old for Linux?

Howdy Folks,
I am a Senior Systems Analyst with the government. Senior, a title they give us oldsters. I am old school, nuts-and-bolts network mechanic: dos, win work group, win95, win2k, winxp, , Nt Severs, windows servers, and oh yes Novell. But my old buddy IBM, is now running Linux. Ok, I am coming out of the MDF Closet. Yes, I admit, I sneak in the MDF using my Linux basic command book to navigate my IBM servers for Voip. I am I too old to learn Linux?
So I think why bother with Linux? Every time I install a distro, I spend hours getting it just to load. Then the real fun begins: trying to load a drivers. A simple nic, or god forbid I try wireless. I have tried dozens of distros, from the big dogs, to DSL. I mean I can get them running, kinda. In windows it's a slam-dunk-done. I don't even have to think...nice!
So I had a couple of day off. After fighting with my Linux server at work, thought I'd stick my nose into Linux again. Started out on Thursday. Literally went through over a dozen distro's. From ubuntu to DSL. BTW who picks these names? Spent an hour just trying to pronoun Connochaet? Why not just Wildebeest? Anyhow, the same results. Many, many, many installs, cfdisk, cfconf, /etc/rc.d/net star, LORD just to format and get a nic running. For every command I spent hours hunting them down. I spent over 12 hours a day struggling through the quagmire of various Linux OS. The big are too big. The light OS require so much to get'em up. Even VectorLight.
Then YouTube! And there is VectorLInux with video and voice, what a GREAT idea. That was Saturday night. In a few minutes cfdisk made sense. Saw a video on VL with text install. I installed it and reinstalled it till I got it just how I wanted. Thank god it found my PCMICA dlink wired nic. In one of my installs I tried my wireless Truemobile card. Well that was a miserable failure. But I have another wireless nic at work. a Netgear WG511 802.11g Wireless PCMCIA Notebook Adapter, I read somewhere it's a Linux easy install, ok, we'll see.
I am a survivor of the 60's! And the best I experienced from these different distro sites and forums is human beings! Folks out on the frontier of new ideas. Volunteering time, dedication, energy, and a little money for the benefit of others; sharing for the sake of sharing! Here I thought that died with us old hippies! I am over whelmed. I read these threads of folks helping others. Each helping the other. WOW.
Ok enough of that. Here's my issue. I love this VL OS. I 'm setting up a (in a broke state) government employment workshop. Where job seekers can come in and use a computer, lean to write a resume, and search for a job. These folks mostly have very little computer experience. And man can they trash a box! I love how Linux can add a user with very limited, and easy assignable rights. Win XP is a nightmare, MS has a program called steady state but its ugly. I'd love to introduce the public to VL. It looks like windows? Kinda works like windows?
So my questions:
-Where do I find networking tools?
-How do I setup simple tcp/ip printing?
-Could I use Iexplorer? Well maybe they firefox wouldn't frighten them that much.
-What about MS Office. Can I install that on VL?
Thanks _shawn