First of all, (and this is just the distro zealot in me pushing through) format your box and install debian. You will be happier down that road, trust me. When I first started, I installed Red Hat 5.0 and liked it. Then, I found FreeBSD; and my world was so much better. Recently, I have returned to the Linux kernel with my newfound love of Debian and 'apt-get install anything'. The one piece of advice I can give you is Debian.

       As far as text editors for coding go (you've heard vi, VIM, and emacs), I am a pretty big fan of nedit.

Jeremy