Thats pretty true, and I was like that when I first switched over... "oh I can make word docs and chat, Im good". Then I started playing with terminal a lot more and broke a few things, so its always good to have a little more knowledge than really required.
Try these things
Kill X and try to login via command line. From there list the contents of your home folder and find a "small" file to copy to your desk top. After its been copied, restart X and log back in to see it it worked.
Edit your grub settings so that it wait 1sec, you can usually catch it before it loads the OS so 1 sec is more than enough.
Try build most of your applications from source. Dont just use the "make install" command, be sure to configure them if they have to option.
and thats all i cant think of without doing to deep