Inviting viewpoints about using bitnami to download drupal...

Hi:

I have read a lot about the drupal core and contributed modules and am excited and ready to download and begin using it.

But, being very much a beginner, downloading (e.g. modifying via the terminal) and setting up the local development environment for the three website projects I want to create seems daunting so I'm looking for a simple way to do this. (I do have MAMP PRO, but even so, it seems very complicated.)

In the course of my research, I came across an apple.com download...

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/unix_open_source/bitnamimampstack....

...so I'm thinking that maybe bitnami, which states ...

"Each installer includes all of the software necessary to run out of the box (the Stack). The process is simple; just download, click next-next-next and you are done! BitNami Stacks are completely self contained and will not interfere with other software on your system." (bitnami.org)

... may be an easy way to go, seeing I could download a stack for each website, and if a website doesn't work out I could just delete the entire stack without it interfering with the others...(I realize this may be overkill as the whole stack will be duplicated, but...it's easy... and until I learn more, I'm thinking this may be a good way to get started and get my feet wet until I get more sophisticated with it all....?

Does this make sense?

Would very much appreciate and welcome any and all input and thoughts about my 'plan of attack', and if there are any known downsides or issues with using bitnami (e.g. am I then dependent on them for updates??).... Or would CVS be simpler?

Thanks,
yin