I find it to be really an incredible achievement. Puppy 3.X is a bit better on hacked together older equipt.
Darn thing just works. If you have more than 256 megs of ram it is very fast and writes nothing to your hard drive.
If you want to become a Linux hacker, it is a very steep learning curve. You don't realize how much you know of Windows(tm) because you have been using it since the beginning. If you know enough to repair a broken Windows installation, and do custom installations, what you know would fill a small library.
Linux is a different OS. You will be learning the command line and all of the intricacies from scratch. You have to keep reminding yourself of this when the blood starts squirting out your ears. Linux is just the kernel--it provides the environment to run the hardware and all of the individual components which make up a "distribution" like Debian or Slackware or any of the myriad of others.
Everything there is to know about Linux--including the source code--is online. The problem is that there is too much. It is very difficult, at times, to find precisely what it is you wish to learn.
http://www.google.com/linux is your truest friend in the beginning. As is:
http://www.linuxquestions.org.
The great thing about it is that all of the concepts are transferable to Windows. When you can do full administration of Linux--you will find that the knowledge (when transferred) will make you a Windows God.