If you want to get a taste of the whole thing: 1. Install Ubuntu. 2. Start using emacs (maybe with "Learning Emacs", O'Reilly, as mechanical_fish suggests).

If you want to get a taste of the whole thing: 1. Install Ubuntu. 2. Start using emacs (maybe with "Learning Emacs", O'Reilly, as mechanical_fish suggests). 3. Learn some Python (maybe with "Learning Python", O'Reilly too). 4. Use webpy (http://webpy.org http://webpy.org) to develop a simple web application. 5. Learn how to program SQLite (and thus basic SQL) using Python and make your web application use a database. 6. Make your application public (http://vpslink.com http://vpslink.com might be enough, $7.95/month). The 4th and 5th are "minimalistic" (for a web framework and a DB engine), least "complication", because the goal should be (I think) completing a simple project in a few months. From this you might get a glimpse of "the forest", or "connect the dots" (of web programming). After that, if you want more, you can now go learn all of what others have very appropriately suggested: SICP, some system administration, PostgreSQL, Ruby (+ on Rails), git (or Bazaar), Data Structures, Algorithms, Test Driven Development, PHP, etc.