MVC3 does not require LINQ nor EF. I suggest you take another look at EF, particularly Code First EF (which is what MVC3 uses by default), as it is greatly simplified from the earlier versions.

With Code First, you define a class for each table (one property per column), the Context (basically a database manager -- one line of code per table), and then instantiate the Context where needed, then make calls to do CRUD. It's VERY easy.

MVC3 is pretty easy. I use it with EF Code First. You can try the Music Store walk through tutorial (http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials) to see how it all works.

>I have been watching the Pluralsight Tutorials on ASP.NET MVC 3 and I am totally confused to the direction I want to following. It looks like (from the little I understood) that ASP.NET MVC 3 "suggesting" (or maybe even requires) to use the Entity Framework and LINQ. Of course I don't quite understand these technologies and also find them very complicated.
>
>A couple of years ago I created a small WinForms app using strongly typed dataset approach. It was slow to understand back then but it was less complicated (I think) and I had more control.
>
>So now I am not sure which direction I should follow when building a small ASP.NET application. The application (as the starting point) will be performing the following:
>
>1. Get a data set from the SQL Server database.
>2. Display the data in the grid view.
>3. Allow user to switch to a detailed view (where fields are in textbox controls).
>4. Allow user to make changes and save (when click on Save button) the changes to the database.
>
>Any suggestions to which approach you like? TIA.