And it's worth it to pay for a commercial version with CDs and a manual, unless you have a Linux-knowledgeable friend. Now I'm quite happy, except this is a really slow system compared to win95. People will tell you that Linux is free and even if you don't pay for support, you can still have your questions answered quickly and for free on usenet. That's true, but people on usenet aren't completely familiar with the details of your system, neither the software nor the hardware. You may need this group if you are testing CGIs your Linux computer.
People there are complete jerks.
On some of the Apache and Perl pages, they tell you you're a jerk if you post to the wrong group. That's pretty silly. People automatically post to the group they see as being the most pertinent, because it's in their best interest. The tone in the Apache world is, everybody who is asking questions is a jerk from Microsoft who wants free support and hasn't read the FAQs or manuals. And I don't blame them.