...but I'm a complete newbie to it.

I don't know anything about it; what version I should get, the software, etc.  I've been reading up on it a little, though, and since I don't do much PC gaming anymore, I figured it'd be pretty neat to mess around with.  Where would I have to go/what would I have to do to learn about/install Linux?  I'm thinking I should try Ubuntu, but SuSe looks good too.  Any input is appreciated.   

We're in the same boat! Yay!
Well, Linux is a pain in the ass to start out with but once you get used to your distro it should run a tad smoother. Just don't expect to do everything you can do in windows. Well I mean... WINE helps with .exes but theres still a few programs that wont work.(Half of the games I make with GM ;_;)

...
Does that mean no CAVE STORY?

Either way, that's pretty much the only PC game I'd be interested in playing anymore (Besides Starcraft), so...Hopefully WINE works with those :P

If it doesn't it's not a big loss, though.

Well that's awesome.

I just checked and both CS and SC are compatible with Wine.

EDIT: So I went to go download the Ubuntu 7.10 ISO, and it's not an ISO image. It's just all the Files organized into folders.  I can't burn it to a CD...

>.>

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

Where were you downloading it from? These are in .iso.

I just figured out, it's WinRAR interfering, trying to extract the iso...>.>
So I shall proceed to burn it to disc!

I started using Ubuntu back at 5.10 'breezy', which I upgraded to 6.06 'dapper' when 6.06 was still being developed.
I recently installed 7.10 due to some issues I had with my dapper install (OK, so Beryl broke some things and I might have nuked my xserver), but the method I used was to use a Xubuntu 'feisty' install disc I had and then I used the update manager to upgrade from there.
Using this method was simple enough, but it'd probably be better to just get the 7.10 install disc as I had to install a few things which would normally already be there (compiz, emerald & Gnome mainly).

Ubuntu is the best distro I have used when it comes to WiFi support as it picked that up right away, though it didn't list my router so I had to manually type in the name (not a big deal really as it still worked).
I had Fedora installed, but it wouldn't work with my WiFi card as it claimed it couldn't run some command on it, but Ubuntu happily enables it.

My only real problems are caused by dabbling with Compiz Fusion.
While it works for me, Beryl always liked to overwrite my keyboard settings and although CF in 7.10 also did this, I only had the change my settings back once.
On top of that, it's also recently stolen my desktop icons and my desktop right click menu, though this isn't too big of a problem for me as I don't really use desktop icons due to Gnome's panel draws (I put all my frequently used desktop icons in one so that they don't clutter things up).
I don't know why it's stolen them, but Beryl under 6.06 did the same, only Compiz Fusion did show the icons until yesterday.

As for software, here's what I'd recommend:

Browser: Firefox 2 (FF3 is also available), Opera or Epiphany
Mail client: Thunderbird
Image editing: GIMP
Vector graphics: Inkscape, Xara Xtreme or Synfig Studio
Office: Open Office.org (others might have better ideas, but I never use office apps)
Code editor: jEdit, SCIte, Eclipse and so on...
Media: Mplayer (movies) & Rhythmbox (makes me not hate using my iPod nano G2 with Linux)... Also, I installed lots of codecs for Gstreamer to allow for more formats.
Games: Frozen Bubble
Messaging \ chat: Pidgin, Chatzilla and so on...

My main reason for using Compiz is that I like some of the features it has such as how I can nail one or a number of windows onto the back of another.
That's useful for keeping a terminal on a desktop without it getting in the way (that, or you could nail a browser to the back of a movie so that you can flip it over to the browser if someone walks in).
I'd see this as an easy way to get around your boss catching youon the net when you should be working as you just tap a button and your browser converts to a boring spreadsheet :]