[charlesju]

I've been out of college for the last year and a half so perhaps I'm already ancient, but I'd like to also recommend using a laptop. I used to carry my laptop everywhere I went, should be a lot easier now with netbooks. However, I would recommend using a Mac just because the sheer user experience of the mac (plus the BSD kernel) make it much more enjoyable and friendly experience. You're going to be spending a lot of time in the next few years pouring your soul into your laptop, choose one that makes you the happiest (for me, that was a Mac).

As for the Windows/Linux issue, I would usually do most of my programming at the computer lab or through SSH into a server. The primary reason for this was to be consistent with the grading rubrics used by the institution. With that in mind, your need for windows or linux is generally fairly limited.