What would be better to learn French / Spanish / Japanese / etc... get a person who knows that language to teach you, or actiually go to a place where everyone knows that language natively?
Basically, if you don't have to do it yourself, you won't think about it, and therefore won't learn. I'd actually suggest uninstalling and re-installing (from source) every program you wish to use regularily, just to see how it works... you might think you understand Apache->PHP->MySQL now, just try installing them... hehe.
Anyway, better to immerse yourself. If you have any doubts, though, I wouldn't do it, because your computer is basically unusable untill you do. Also, I'd suggest getting a good book on Linux. It'll teach you everything from a(sh) to z(sh) that you'll need to use.
[ http://slackware.com/ ] - Good distro for immediate immersion. (BSD-style instead of System V-style rc.d, remember that for future reference.)
