I weigh 130 lbs. wet and I think Linux is great! I started using it about 6 months ago and haven't looked back. I can't even remember the last time I booted into Windows on my home PC. As long as you're not a gamer, Linux is a fantastic alternative to Windows and Mac OS.
When you say version 7.1 though, which distro are you talking about? Red Hat? Unless you absolutely have to, I'd stay away from Red Hat and install something Debian-based like Ubuntu. Ubuntu is just as good and possibly even easier to pick up for beginners than RH, and it also has the benefit of being truly free.
As far as multimedia goes, I recommend VLC for video:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
MPlayer is good too though. For music, XMMS is a nice little Winamp clone, but amaroK is fantastic. I seriously think it's the best mp3 player for any platform.
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