One thing a lot of people don't realize is how the older unix peopled learned unix. None of them installed linux and learned from there. They all had their first unix experiences on a timesharing system that someone else who knew what they were doing set up. Learning to USE unix/linux is a challenge anyone can take on, but learing to administer linux while learning to use it is the real stumbling block for everyone.

So, try and find a friend who will give you a shell account on one of their boxes. Poke around till you're very familiar with the basics of cat/grep/ls/cp/mv/cd and all those basic things that every unix person assumes you already know. A good goal is perhaps to write a web site and set up a few CGI forms of some sort. Once you've got that down, move on to running your own Linux box.

Matthew