OS

I am currently using Win 7 pro 32 bit on my desktop/laptop and Win 7 pro 64 bit on the mobile laptop and only one problem so far and that is with one radio programming software from Butel.nl (the one for the 396/996XT series), it doesn't run properly on 64 bit and fails.

So far I have found win 7 to be as problem free as XP from back when.

Ideally learning all OS's and being fluent in them is a good idea, why not? you never know when you might need that knowledge let's say at work.

I'd like to learn Linux before Mac.

Originally Posted by basicxman

Ubuntu Linux > Windows 7 > Mac OS X.6 > Vista > XP

I'm currently running Ubuntu 9.10 on my laptop and desktop (desktop is virtualizing Win7).

Screenshots
http://tinypic.com/r/2ak0i9z/6
http://i49.tinypic.com/dq16io.jpg

Linux allows me to have a lot of flexibility over my system and frankly it's a saviour for programmers, built in Python/PHP and a majority of the GNU Compiler Collection. Ubuntu's gedit is a great programming editor IMO and it uses only a few MB of RAM on my system. Not to mention it's external tools plugin is awesome.