congrats on your first step of taking interest in Linux

and welcome

here is a section done by The Screen Savers TV show on TechTV on Linux because we all luv linux

http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/linux/

i believe you can find alot of answers that you want for your questions there

here is a quoted list from Trend which i really like and agrees very much
the post can be located HERE