well to start with networking, i wouldnt suggest 2500 serries as they are old and out dated, id suggest learning howto do shit on the new 2600 serries, there about as expensive as the 2500 serries used to be.. no hubs fyi ;D. for Novell id suggest buying their student books that they have for their classes i found it highly usefull for when i was learning CNA materials, of course i was a student then ^^. i still have the book. if your going to be studying for CCNA see if you can find someone else who is taking the classes and get the CCNA class material from them.

Back to Novell. its an ok system, it is a NOS it has no real workstation features. its most command line and gui is 100% java and horrid to work with if its not nessary.