I've been using Linux for probably around 4 years or so now, it's a massive learning curve as mentioned already from good old Windows but what you can do with it is endless. I am not a guru, actually far from it and I use a very small portion of it's power but what I need it to do it runs very well.
I'll be frank and honest here, it's not for the faint hearted, chances are you will encounter problems and at times I found the messages are often cryptic but a quick search on google.com/linux usually finds the answer, other than that help usually isn't too far away.
I personally wouldn't use it as a desktop system, ok, if your into just web browsing, chatting and email it's fine but for games you'll bash your head against a wall well I have previously and strictly use it as a server now. The GUI has come a very long since I first start using it back around the Red Hat 7.3, but still has a long way before it will replace my Windows machine.
It's main purpose is a server as such the CLI is where all the real power sits, I have 2 machines, 1 runs my internet (WhiteBox Enterprise) ie firewall, routing and happens to also runs a development JC site amongst a file sharing for the rest of the network. The other machine is running Ubuntu which is actually really nice, I can't comment on Slackware or Suse as I have not used either but if you ask 10 people what they reckon the best distro is chances are you'll probably get 8 different answers.
As a matter of interest JC runs on linux (Debian).
Generally speaking download the 1st CD and then use the update software which comes with it such as apt-get, up2date, yum etc to obtain things that your after. The additional stuff is things like mail, web, php, mysql etc.
Ubuntu has a very nice Synaptics package for the GUI which is drop dead simple to use, simply type in what you want and your off and running. My suggestion for a n00b would be Ubuntu, the documentation is very good and I've even learnt a thing or two.
My first experience with linux wasn't pleasant, I logged in and thought well what do I do now? I didn't know about startx so I gave up, read more and went back to it and haven't looked back since.
In terms of a system grab some old piece of junk and you'll be fine, if your going to install the GUI ie KDE, Gnome etc have 3 - 4 gig space available and some decent amount of memory saying 128 or 256 at a minimum.
Uptime is awesome as well
17:38:37 up 122 days, 11:06
Try getting that on your windows system
Linux users...
And installing stuff like drivers which is a simple task in Windows takes about 100 steps, and not all hardware/features of may be supported.. lack of software (games and applications) although windows can be emulated this isn't 100% and the performance takes a hit..
