I must be greater than 1001, however at this stage I don't even have a Mac. My Macbook should be arriving in the next 10 working days. but looking thru this forum, it seems to have the answers to my anticipated questions. I have been gradually weaning myself from Microsoft and IE for the last few years and am using Ubuntu for a year which is a long time in Linux so when I'm finished playing with the boxes I'll be trying to install the OS on my Mac. Incidentally the last time I officially used an Apple was when we got one to play with in 1984.

That is 20 + years. Why now do you buy an Apple laptop that runs a system that you have only OBSERVED? Surely you test drove one somewhere and said "This beats Linux! It is worth the extra bucks."
Are you going to partition the drive and run Linux and Mac OSX as well?

My observations as such are that the Mac beats Windows in terms of ease of use and its graphics programmes. What I hope is tht the the addition of Linux will give me what I need.

Go for it moojo!!!!
If I were you, I'd buy Parallels Desktop for the Mac so you can run Ubuntu and OS X together.
I have the same setup myself and it works like a charm.

You can even exchange files between Ubuntu and OS X without a hitch, just see my posting about it (Folder Sharing with Ubuntu under Parallels).