i'm dual booting 12.04 and lion on my late 2011 macbook air. very simple. install refit in OSX. you may have to reboot several times or do a complete shutdown before the refit bootloader will show up. then it will be a very familiar install from there. you can use the mac disk utility to partition your drive beforehand. i haven't tried bootcamp, so i can't comment about that.

you can install cygwin with python and work from a bash shell in windows. or virtualbox a minimal gentoo or arch install inside windows.

there are many ways to skin this cat.

Thanks for the tips.

I ended up installing Python 2.7, gedit, and then I had to edit a path field to load Python from the terminal. I've just started Learn Python the Hard Way by Allen B. Downey and I really like the tone he uses, actually. He mentions this, though: "A programmer will eventually tell you to use Mac OSX or Linux. If the programmer likes fonts and typography, they'll tell you to get a Mac OSX computer. If they like control and have a huge beard, they'll tell you to install Linux. Again, use whatever computer you have right now that works. All you need is gedit, a Terminal, and python." I hope when I do transition over to the Linux version, it's not a steep learning curve. I already use Debian, but I've decided to work on Windows...I hope it doesn't hold me back from any valuable learning experience.

Thanks, again!

Learn Python the Hard Way is written by Zed Shaw; not Alen B. Downey.

Oops. Typo! I mixed him up with the Think Python author. Thanks for catching that!