Originally Posted by Wimpface
I'm sooo thinking of going over to Linux. Do you need any real experience with any coding language to do this? Or is it just, make the switch and other people will have done it all for you?
Would love to hear an aswer to this!
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It depends on what you want to do. For all everyday usage, things can be done via the GUI. I myself use the Terminal a couple times a month when I need to do something a bit advanced or I am grabbing something very specific from a repository as it's faster to use apt-get rather than looking through Synaptic's (Ubuntu/Debian's GUI front end to apt) lists. However most commands that an average user will need are a fast Copy and a Shift-Ctrl-V from a forum or other source. I keep a list of terminal commands that I find useful.
However for everyday use, there is no need to delve into the Terminal. You can launch applications via the Gnome or Kickstart (KDE) menus, via launchers that live on your Desktop (Gnome), Panel (Gnome), or Dock (Gnome) or Plasmoid (KDE). Depending on your distro, many applications can be downloaded pre-compiled and ready to be unpacked. I am a big fan of Debian's deb packages (many Debian packages can be used with Ubuntu) as Ubuntu uses deb.
If you are looking to get started with Linux, I would suggest getting a hold of a LiveCD and playing with it. LiveCDs for distros like Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Fedora, Sidux, Mandriva, can be downloaded and burned to CD. Ubuntu will also ship a physical LiveCD to you free (it takes about a month).
I am in the process of writing some articles for those think about or are switching to Linux based on my experience.