I would use one of the free programs like Audicity first, just to get used to multi-tracking. Then go and buy one of the upper-class programs.
Im using Sonar 4 and think its great. Ive used Cubase also, and it is somewhat similar.
So my vote would be Sonar or Cubase after using audicity for awile
Thanks for the info, I've downloaded Audacity & Reaper and playing around with their demo songs, both seem user freindly at the moment..... Will any half decent interfaces run most software, such as MBox, M-Audio, Mackie, Lexicon and so on....? Cheers:)