Osgeld:
*nix skills are required for the pi as well, though you pretty much get a blank board and have to go though (ie) debian's klingon worded, multipaged, broken up, maybe out of date depending on where you happen to link to, gawd awefull instructions
Or, you could read the RPi's FAQ, which directs you to a download page with instructions even a call-center staffer could follow for creating a bootable SD with your choice of three different flavors of Linux.