If you still have to learn to program, forget about Suse for now. Keep it generic and get 'the feel' for it.
I don't think that one will learn by just compiling some source code. There are plenty tutorials but you first have to pick a language. C is mentioned above and is probably the most generic one. It's also considered 'difficult', but there are plenty advantages. Once you know C, you can program for practically any platform (including microcontrollers as used in ABS, electronic injection, washing machines, tv, vcr, ird etc etc etc).
tutorial C (it's one that I quickly found with google, no quality guarantee)
Some other languages are tcl/tk, bash (if you limit yourself to Linux), python, perl, php and java; the list is definitely not complete. Except for java and C, the mentioned languages are scripting languages (which implies that they don't need compiling). In general, scripting languages are slower than compiled languages. For most scripting languages, versions are available for different platforms; if code is properly written, it can run on Linux, Mac, Windows etc without modifications.
Just type 'tutorial' and the name of the programming language in your favorite search engine and see what shows up.
Please note that learning to program is not only about learning a language. It's also about programming/design principles. I'm not aware of tutorials for this, but there are definitely books on the market.
PS I write in C. If a gui is required, I add a tcl/tk frontend to it.