Getting Ready to buy a new MBP 13"

Hi all. I've been a tech for many years and the last 2-4 have been primarily in System administration (Specifically Unix/Linux). For the last three I've been patiently waiting for my Windows Laptop to die so I could replace it with a new Mac. I want it because I get the advantages of running a BSD based OS and I can still get support and quality software. One of the questions I had is are there any groups/communities of Mac "hackers" (I mean hackers in the traditional sense not the medias skewed definition). I don't relish the idea of everything being a complete black-box all the time (I know this is against the typical Mac philosophy). I want things to just work which is part of the reason I'm switching but when things do go south (e.g.) kernel panics etc I like to fix things myself. Input?

Probably my favorite site for "hacks" or little known features is MacOSXHints. Otherwise, I'd hop on Sourceforge and check out the Fink project, lots of commonly used *nix utilities that can be compiled and run on the Mac. The nice thing about the Fink project is that everything is installed in a /sw directory, and the /sw is added to your path, so you can type in the commands simply, but if you ever want to remove it all, just delete one directory.

Thx

Thanks much!

Community type stuff
I like Fink as mentioned
Fink - Home

But I've been using Macports for FOSS of late.
The MacPorts Project -- Home

I like iclarified for tutorials (includling jailbreaking)
iClarified - Tutorials

Programming help
Cocoa Dev Central
Mac OS X Reference Library
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Some useful stuff
For trackpad/magic mouse additions I like better touch tool.
Great Tools For Your Mac By Andreas Hegenberg » BetterTouchTool, BetterSnapTool & SecondBar

getting to a shell easier
Download ShellHere 1.0.5 Free - Open a new Terminal window from Finder - Softpedia

hack your desktop with geektool
15 GeekTool desktop inspirations for the weekend