My best suggestion is to talk with Kurt and/or Sarah at some point and I know they can help you out. I'm using Linux (Ubuntu version) and I love it. You can do a lot more with it than with Windows and it's way more secure than Windows (no viruses exist for Linux, so no anti-virus/anti-spyware needed at all). Kurt said that he personally would chose Linux over Mac and definitely over Windows. It's free too. I believe you just download it from online, burn it to a cd and then reboot with the cd in the drive and make sure your computer boots from the desk not the hard drive and then the installation process starts. But yeah, talk with Kurt, especially about the building your own computer.~Sophia