oh- some other resources for you:
http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/ (a distro chooser via quiz)
Where to get it? buy a linux magazine, download it via
http://iso.linuxquestions.org or have a look at ubuntu- it ships you free CD's anywhere (yes, ANYWHERE- I got mine in Bolivia South America)
https://shipit.ubuntu.com/
What to do with it? anything that you can do with a computer normally- officeing, gaming, surfing the net, whatever.
Linux is pretty intuitive, but the
wiki and the tutorials on this site. (no link- I'm too lazy and my internet has been- "shaped" or slowed.)
Hope you work out what you need to know.
titanium_geek