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My advice, as someone who has used linux for many years (but almost entirely as a server and not a desktop) is this:
If you just want a desktop system, go for Ubuntu. All the Debian goodness, but with faster updates and a really damn slick interface.
If you want a very solid system - especially any kind of server - go with an actual Debian install.
Also, Ubuntu has their own live-CDs.
Finally, as others have already pointed out - you don't need anything on the system already to install Debian. Your best rout is to download the netinst images which currently run about 115MB to 150MB and burn them to a CD (You can use UltraISO or something if you're on Windows to burn the CD). Make sure that your BIOS is configured to boot from the CDROM, pop the netinst CD in and turn your computer on. It will walk you through a very brief configuration - and possibly setup the networking all on its own for you.
Getting an operational Debian install with functional networking is unbelievably simple and quick unlike anything you have probably used in the non-linux world before. You'll be asked your language, timezone, root password, create a regular user, drive partitioning preference and possibly hostname/domain/ip. Then all you have left to do when it is done installing is to run apt-get to download whatever strikes your fancy (by the way, the first thing I would do is apt-get aptitutude to make life a little easier on yourself).
As for programming... I would say neither Perl or Python. I use Perl for web stuff all the time, but if you've never programmed before - start yourself where every other real programmer started - learn C. All you need is a compiler (gcc). You can find a million resources online for learning C not to mention a million books in the world.
As someone who isn't a coder for a living, I can't stress enough how much I wish I had learned to program with C rather than a scripting language. I picked up so many bad habits simply because I didn't know any better and didn't have the language structure to force me automatically into doing certain things the "right way".
As for deleting stuff from /temp (or do you mean /tmp or /var/tmp..?) -- you shouldn't ever need to. But if for some wild reason you absolutely need and want to, just pull up a terminal and 'su' or 'sudo' to root and do it.
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