Comment by staunch

You might benefit a lot from just watching how Unix-based developers work. Screencasts are a really good way to do that. You can learn a lot from just watching and following a long. Just re-type things verbatim at first - while you're getting comfortable. Do not copy/paste at all. If you're doing web projects then don't even think about anything other than Ruby or Python. Try them both out, pick whichever one seems more comfortable. Don't sweat it.