Please for the love of God don't longboard haha it looks cool but its really easy. Now as for buying your first skateboard get a deck from a company that you like for that is mostly personal taste. I would say go with some bone red bearings but if you have 50 bucks lying around get bone swiss for they are much better. Trucks are usually best from Tensor or Grenade as far as I am concerned. And wheels are pretty much wheels.

When you are learning especially learning stuff like dropping in on a mini pipe and Ollies and kickflips and shuvits (most of your basic tricks) its gonna take a few months and be a pain in the ass but dont give up. Most people take about 2 weeks of riding before they can start to learn ollies and then another 2 weeks to really get them off the ground (A tip is learn to ollie moving because even though it is easy still its way different moving and all skateboard tricks are done moving) as for kickflips and stuff that just takes practice and messing around with your foot position. Good look dude.

Find a good skateboard forum, and ask all the questions you want there. Or you could ask your questions, and find tips at the site in my signature.
You can read all you want about skateboarding, and how to do tricks, but nothing beats actually watching how it's done... on Youtube.

Since you're new to skateboarding I would recommend just a blank board to start you out. Don't buy a really expensive brand named setup, cause you don't need it, unless you got the money.
Ask your local skate shop what their blank boards are. The one I got was a Blind setup, and I love it. This is my 4th board, and best. Since I'm no pro at this stuff you should just check around and get more tips.
Have fun!

I ride a longboard around my campus. Skateboards are made for tricks. Longboards are made for downhill racing, or a method of getting around places. Get what suits your needs.

skateboard vs longboard Carolina Skate

Don't go to a skateboard forum, go to a skatepark, ask around, try out a few boards, choose from actually riding it.

Skateboarding forums are alright though.

Anyways, like those above me have said, get whatever you feel is right. If you want to cruise and bomb hills, get a long board. If you want a skateboard solemnly for transport, get a cruiser. If you want all of the above, plus a few nifty tricks to show off, get a skateboard.

And there's a bunch of different decks, trucks, wheels for different terrains and styles of skating. That's all for you to figure out when entering that skateshop, there's no need to be ashamed when going in, we've all been there and done that, the shop keepers probably deal with the likes of you daily. And there's no shame in longboarding, recently with college in mind I'm thinking of getting a longboard for easy transport, and there's tricks and tips involved in that as well, not as easy as the first replier makes it out to be (unless you're one of those hipsters who bandwagon the campus longboard hype).

Anyways, I'm an on and off skateboarder, I've hit 2 years recently but my best trick's probably a kickflip, so compared to you, I should be the one that's embarassed. Thinking of getting back into skating though, just today found a bunch of old bearings to replace my rusted bones reds which I was pretty happy about. I usually skate a few times a month at best now, quite sad really....