Questions from a beginner

[Alison Myers]

Hi. I'm a beginning programmer at a fairly late age and have been looking for a language to learn.
I have decided against starting with C or C++ because I think they will be too complicated and they seem to be only really needed for writing device drivers and operating systems, which is not what I wat to do.
Is python a good language to learn first? Will my knowledge help me with other languages later?
I will be writing for win98 and Linux and I know Python is available on both of these, but would the code be transportable, especially if I write things using tcl (this is probably a long way off yet, but I'd like to know).
I have links to online tutorials, but where would I find good source code?
Do I need to buy any books to help me and if so which do you recommend?
Is there a list of programming projects anywhere or would I get these from a textbook?
I probably need to brush up on my maths, so what specific topics should I look at?
TIA

Alison