I am about to become a new lamb in this flock and purchase my first PIC. I
am interested in finding some people that use Linux as their host system.
I will be starting out with the 16C84 but may wish to expand later.

I would like to find:
. An RS232 programing board - I have found several including Jens Madsen
  programmer. Does anyone have a Blank PCB for sale??
. Programming sofware to program the above. I found GNUPIC site but did
  not find RS232 driver.
. An Assembler to compile the for the above. I found Timo Rossi's
  picasm version 1.05. Will this do the job.

Nice but not necessary (Yet).
. A Simulator for Linux. I found nitpic by Dave Madden. Is this still in
  active developement?

Personal success storys of working environments (In Unix) would be most
usefull

Thanks.