I've decided I might switch to an Apple (iBook). I want to learn some basic programming languages after I learn PHP and FLASH 5 better. Can I do this with the Apple fairly easy? Are there many downloads?

i'm sure browsing around macromedia you'll find plentiful Apple products. And with the myriad of projects aiming to port popular Linux softwares to OSX, I doubt you will have much problem :)

As long as you're getting one of the newer machines(ie anything not beige; iBook is good), you'll be fine. OS X will let you do RealBasic, C/C++/Objective C, Java, perl, shell scripting, etc.

In terms of downloads:
I'm not entirely sure what the generic installation comes with... I'm used to getting a Developer Tools CD in the mail on a regular basis. But if the unix tools aren't there already, you can definitely find them online(free) on Apple's site. [ http://developer.apple.com/macosx/gettingstarted/ ] Apple's Developer tools includes an IDE called Project Builder, as well as the standard command line tools like gcc. You can also install a fair number of tools from the unix/BSD community, if Apple or Darwin doesn't have the one you're looking for.

hmm, OS X was more unixy then I thought.

If my parents decide not to let me switch to an Apple, I'll have to get a PC. Of course I'll switch OS to Linux. Every Linux switcher I've heard from seems very happy with it. I was thinking about Mandrake. I'm tired of this Windows thing always screwing up, it can't even shutdown properly. I'm worried that I can't install Linux though because I'm not the most computer savvy person. Is it easy? I've never even had a chance to install Windows myself and I'm looking for a chance to learn. It's sad, but hey, I've got to learn somewhere.

I would recommend Mandrake (*cough*) or Redhat for ease of use. My personal favourate is Redhat.

I was checking on downloads that I could get if I get an Apple computer. I noticed that Python gives a model you must build your self from a source. Is this hard for a person just starting to learn PHP? Also, the PHP.net doesn't have many downloads either, it leads to a site that has instructions to build your own I think. Any links to sites that do have installation for PHP or Python would help, or just simply easy instructions on how to build one.

They probably have windows binaries somewhere.
Welcome to the world of open source.

I believe python is packaged with the recent OS X versions (in particular, 10.2). I understand PHP is also configured with the apache webserver provided by OS X.

I don't even have a mac. This is just what I've heard.