Well yes and no. It is kind of easy to think that start button shifted a little to the left and only shows up when you take mouse over it. Makes sense, at least not alien as suddenly linux. Plus the windows, task-bar, control panel, etc everything is same. Just a cover of metro start menu, which they can completely ignore if they wish. I have been using win 8 as my primary OS since it was released in beta, and i introduced my mom to it, she understood basics of metro in a few minutes and never had a problem with it. Although she is a computer operator at a school so she is a heavy computer users (as compared to an average mom her age)

Seems like she's the exception to the rule. From various videos posted on YouTube of middle-aged and elderly people trying to navigate Windows 8, it seems like the transition won't be quite so smooth for everybody.

That said, my parents have been using (Ubuntu) Linux for the last 5 years without any problems at all. It's definitely reduced support calls from them (no more crashes or viruses). They're still using the same old PCs from when I first installed Ubuntu. When I visit them, I install a new LTS release, if it's available (one's released every 2 years), a process that takes about 30 minutes of my active attention.