Well I wasn't expecting to see a post from me in this thread. xD

The packaging and repository system is great. There are a bunch of different types, Ubuntu's being aptitude. Some things to be aware of:

- You can run aptitude from the command line or using a GUI. The most popular GUI is Synaptic and it works well, however you'll probably start using the command line more frequently as you become more familiar and comfortable with it.

- To install a package from the command line, use a command like: "sudo apt-get install [package-name]"
"sudo" tells the shell to perform the command as root (Administrator in Windows-talk. You will be asked for your password).
"apt-get" is the name of the application. This is simply to start the package-management tool.
"install" is the command passed to the package-management tool, which (amazingly), installs a package. You could replace it with "remove" to uninstall a package, for example.
"package-name" is the name of the package in the software repository. To find the name of a particular package, you can use the command "apt-cache search [keyword]". You can also find packages for Ubuntu by browsing Ubuntu packages.

- Aptitude searches in cached repository databases. Basically, it downloads a list of all available package names, descriptions and download locations to your computer and searches them when you want to install a package, rather than searching on the server every time. For this reason, you need to sync your cache about once fortnightly, to ensure you have an up-to-date package list. You can do so with "sudo aptitude update".

- 99% of packages on Linux have dependencies. Dependencies are packages which the one you're installing relies on. For that reason, dependencies must be installed first or simultaneously to a package that requires them. Aptitude provides dependency resolution, thankfully, meaning you'll rarely have to worry about them.

- Occasionally, you may need to manually install "dpkg" (Debian) package files, for example if the repository info is incorrect, out of date, or if the package is simply not in the repo. You can do that with the command "sudo dpkg -i /path/to/package.dpkg". This method of installation provides no dependency resolution, so you'll often need to research dependencies or install each one manually by trial and error.

It's awesome you decided to try Linux. I reckon that in time, you'll be using it more than Windows - only keeping a Windows partition or machine for when you need to use it.