My tip would be to get VirtualBox or VMWare Workstation, and run your choice of Linux on it in fullscreen. There are two things that are annoying when learning Linux:

1) dealing with hardware issues

2) dealing with updates that break stuff

Virtualization solves both of those, at the cost of a little performance. The nice thing about VM's is that the virtual hardware is always the same and generally well tested (no hardware issues). And if you break stuff, you can roll back changes (VM snapshots). Both VirtualBox and VMWare have full screen modes and support for dual monitors out of the box.

Also, make sure you get a server as well and learn to administer it it from the command line. It's a great way to keep learning more.