Welcome to the wonderful world of Linux. As for playing around with backups in redhat, I would recommend looking into Amanda.
http://www.amanda.org/
Also, if you want to do a little more digging on the subject, you might want to take a look at "UNIX Backup and Recovery" by W. Curtis Preston . It has some good information that is valid on perfrming backups (and restorations) on Linux systems as well.
Enjoy.