Hi, a few months back I was in exactly your situation and I can tell you in advance it's tough going because good documentation for KDE is really hard to come by.
Here are a few suggestions:
--The book, KDE for Linux for Dummies. It's woefully out of date, but it's a start.
--http://docs.kde.org/ this site contains all the official documentation for KDE.
--This site, using the search feature. Pretty much every question you have has already been asked. The tricky part is knowing what the right search terms are, especially when you are a newbie and are not really sure how to diagnose your problem.
--Google groups: http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&group=comp.windows.x.kde
Again though, you sort of have to know what you're looking for.
Finally, a few pointers:
1) Let Linux teach you, not you teach it, by which I mean, don't go in expecting the Linux to do things exactly like Windows. Almost everything you want to do can be done, but it can take a while to figure out how to do it in Linux. Most of the time, I found I stumbled across the answer accidentally.
2) Remember that there is a difference between Linux and KDE. KDE is just a graphical system working on top of Linux. So when you are talking about the make command, that's not part of KDE, but a core part of Linux.
3) Ask stupid questions on this site. Yes, the question has been asked, but most of the time, people are still willing to give you an answer -- and you'll get it within a few hours.
4) You may come across a bug, think you've done something wrong, but there's a pretty good chance, this is just a bug in KDE. KDE is full of little bugs. Often times, you just can't do something because that feature, although seemingly offered in a KDE program, just doesn't work.
Good luck. I can tell you this is a hard slog, but it's well worth it.