I'm an ex-Windows user, and I'm real good with VB. What would be a good language to learn on my transition to Linux, preferebly similar to BASIC. Thanks in advance.

well if you wish to stick with VB you could use Phoenix.

python!

www.python.org

Python = funfunfun

pascal, if u like OOP, purchase kylix from borland, good program, comes with c++ compiler thing aswell

My personal favourites:

python (clear syntax and semantics, good for general purpose work. portable)
java (cleanup C++, portable, con: harder to learn than python)
bash (shell scripts are THE universal glue in the UN*X world. probably the best choice for simple automation tasks con: can be used to create spaghetti even worse than VB)
C (fast, but steep learning curve. less appropriate for high level programming)
ocaml (a higher order functional language like ML, with object system. Almost as fast as C)
Common Lisp (well, i said these are my favourites. Beware: huge, complex language, but has had any programming construct people have thought of in the last 40 (!) years. ymmv)

You may even consider
Perl (I find it unreadable, but it is portable, and you can keep using shell programming paradigms)
Ruby (completely OO. haven't tried it)
Scheme (cleanup lisp; guile is a nice small implementation)