First time miner questions

I apologize in advance for the following obnoxiously newbie questions/mild rambling.

I have been following bitcoin ever since the summer of 2011 and greatly believe in bitcoin. I have never mined before, but when the opportunity to buy and ASIC presented itself in the form of a batch 3 Avalon, I couldn't resist. I'm estimating that I have about 2 months (hopefully not much longer) before the ASIC arrives and in that time I need to learn as much as possible about... well... everything!

I suppose the very first question is if I plan on running the Avalon from a dedicated laptop that I have yet to buy, what are the recommended specs (RAM? Processor speed? Any specific CPU?) Will I be able to set up the miner on Windows 7 or 8 or would it be better to use linux (I'd have to learn how to use this OS, but it's something that's been on my to-do list for a while)?

Thank you all very much in advance for your time!