Like many posters before me have said, its a matter of opinion. You'll never know what you want if you don't try out your options first. Download a couple of different distros that work out-of-the-box(openSUSE, Fedora, Mint, Ubuntu are examples) and see how you like them. You don't have to go to the drastic measure of completely removing windows from your computer. Simply make a separate partition or a LiveCD. Most importantly, don't let one bad experience taint your image of Linux. There are literally thousands of distributions to choose from. You just need to find the right one.

Lemur, on 03 February 2013 - 01:30 PM, said:

Thanks, I've been thinking long and hard and decided that pursuing a CS degree is the route for me. It will allow me to enter a field where I can apply skills I've acquired as a hobbyist to bettering my career.

modi123_1, on 19 September 2012 - 07:07 AM, said:

I was literally about to post the exact same thing

Using WebKitGTK+, its great

I just read this, and changed my mind about coding a browser. I knew it would be difficult but, I didn't realize the amount of complexity that went into it. In the meantime I found a nice book on socket programming that be reading. I only chose to attempt this because I wanted a big, long-term project to work on. What are some other long-term project ideas?