My only advice would be to use a desktop (tower) PC and not a laptop. Much easier to get everything working well, and no power management headaches etc.
This is what I did, used a desktop with Linux as a remote server of sorts (while also having a monitor attached). As I got more comfortable with Linux, my usage of my MBP dropped
This is good advice, you can use a terminal, forward x sessions, or use something like x2go for a full gui experience.
Really stinks when you're remote with limited connectivity though. If you're plugged in all day then it would work, yeah
X2go works well over slow lines. I used to run it on a 1mb connection.