question about reformatting/reinstalling

i just switched over from pc to mac and i don't know anyone that uses a mac to help me with my questions so i need your help. i know how to reformat and reinstall everything on a pc but have never done it for a mac computer b4. so was wondering do i just put in the panther disc and it boots off the disc or do i need to do something else? and also if i reformat are all the drivers for printers and that kind of thing included on the panther disc or loaded on @ the factory. so basically just curious as to what i need to download or reload as far as drivers and that kind of thing. i don'treally use that many programs that apple includes so i just want to load a few programs on there and free up a ton of hard drive space since i only have 16gb left out of my 30gb and i don't even have music or pictures on here yet. thanks in advance.

put the OS X CD in, boot while holding C, you should be able to figure it out from there, I think.

but i mean are drivers for the computer loaded on panther already or is it like pc and you have a seperate disc and everything, just never used mac so don't know how it all works just let.

No need to worry about drivers.

As mynameis said, put in the OS X CD/DVD, resart and hold "c" while restarting. Once the Apple-logo appears, release the key and wait a little.

The installer will come up with a language choice, choose your language and continue. Once you arrive at the screen where you have two choices ("Option" and "Continue") choose opetion, and on the next screen, "Erase and install". This will erase your HD and do a fresh OS X install. One of the next screens, gives you again two choices, "Customize" and "Continue". If you click continue, the standar installation will be performed, which includes OS X with BSD subsystem, the iLife programs, iLife, iSync, tons of printer drivers for Epson, HP, Lexmark and canon, and also the localization files, because unlike Windows, OS X comes as international, and if you install all the localization languages (which is default) you can switch the OS's language at any time.

To save some space, you can choose "Customize" and de-select what you don't need. From the printer drivers, remove all brands you don't own (but keep the CUPS-divers), from the localization languages, remove all but the one you need. And from the additional software, remove what you don't want. But don't remove the BSD-subsystem, as some software will require it.

By the way, a full install with everything is around 3GB...