Hi,
first: don´t be afraid of the switcihng technique. It works well. Most important is the layout design. short and wide traces, good power plane, multiple vias to gnd, use ceramic capacitors and good quality inductors.
there are ready to use step down switching modules as pin compatible replacement for 78xx.
If you want to build your own, then linear.com is a good site for information and they have a interactive selction guide to choose the right IC.
Just input your parameters and get a list of ICs.
Hope that helps
Klaus