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Hi there, sorry this is late, I just saw the post. Which uni are you going to? I'm just finishing third year at Glasgow, and I've got friends who've done stuff at Edinburgh.

I really need to get around to finishing that book, it's been on my list for ages. I haven't actually gotten around to starting the project, but there's Nand2Tetris in which you build a complete (virtual) computer from first principles.
I've recently acquired a copy of The Essence of Discrete Mathematics which has good reviews. You can get a copy for 32p, that's pretty damn good imo.
Here in Glasgow we were taught Python in first year, Java in second year and C in third year (which we had to learn by ourselves). Before that, I'd been taught VB6 in high school, self taught JavaScript for this year's team project and dabbled in a little bit of HTML and CSS here and there. As I don't know how much programming experience you have with Java/C, I don't know how appropriate my advice would be. I'd suggest having a look at your syllabus to see when you'll be taught things. As mentioned above, C is taught in CS nowadays, but I think that might actually be your advantage. This year has caused some frustration because of how low level C is in comparison to Java and Python, and what we've had to use if for (String processing in C? Ugghhhhh).

Now onto your final point. The history of Unix is long and comlicated, but long story short there are three main operating systems today: Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Windows is completely unrelated to Unix. Instead, it is a "Disk Operating System" (DOS), and you can see this from the file path names - "C:/" for the hard disk, "D:/" for DVD drive, "E:/" or "F:/" for a flash drive etc. OS X (and its sibling iOS) are based off a direct descendent of the original Unix, it is "Unix-based". Linux was developed as a free, open source alternative to Unix (which was going through some legal issues at the time), and has become a massive global project. It's everywhere, from routers to the servers that power the internet, to smartphones (Android is Linux, despite what some people might argue). Because there's no actual Unix code in it (again, due to the legal issues), it's known as "Unix-like".

I am a huge advocate of having a laptop at uni, especially if it's not your only machine. I started off with a 15.6" Samsung which, although powerful, soon proved too heavy to carry around every day. I've had a couple other smaller laptops, but this year I bought a Chromebook and it's one of the best purchases I've ever made. It runs ChromeOS, a kind of Linux from Google which is designed with the internet in mind. Check out /r/chromeos for more information.