Re: linux / open source ?
If you don't have any Linux experience I wouldn't suggest that for a production machine, specially if you don't have anyone else supporting it. You should be fine with XP and XAMP. Once installed you don't really have to go to the console. You should be able to operate remotely via the web interface of Joomla/Mambo.
In any of the above 2 CMSs, you should be able to setup a catalog app and put the indices of the books in there.