Aloysius, I noticed in a thread posted earlier that you were thinking about switching up to Mac OS X. I would definatly recommend that you try that before you switch over to linux or another unix flavor. It's a great way to get your feet wet. Also I thought you should know that Mac OS X isn't really as much like linux as it is FreeBSD (a unix derived from the berkely systems distrobution). But it's still very much Mac-like in it's interface, alot less scary for a first time unix experience, and a great way to learn some unix from the command-line interface.

__________________
-dewhite