I envy newbies

[mary jeanette]

I decided to learn python because I heard it was a very easy language to
learn. So I downloaded it and bought a couple of very expensive
paperback books from o'reilly only to discover that they are written for
unix. In other words, typing in the examples from the book into the
interpretor only yields various syntax errors. I have no idea what I am
supposed to change in order to make the examples work, and apparently
there is nowhere to turn in order to find out. Q: Am I supposed to know
DOS as a prerequisite? The idea of having to learn DOS is appalling.
Should I try partitioning my hard drive and installing Linux or freeBSD?
Perhaps I should learn Perl instead, I have seen books on Perl written
for Win32 systems.   Thanks for your advice.