Beginner Question: What do you think of this development board ?

Hi,

I am a beginner to be embedded world, and I have been looking around
to purchase a simple development board to experiment on. Since I am
doing this as a hobby, I am restricted to low-cost options. I came
across the following board while I was doing a google search.

http://www.insight.na.memec.com/Memec/iplanet/link1/VirtexIIProLC_1.pdf

It is based on the Virtex II Pro FPGA that contains a PowerPC
processer and a bunch of reconfigurable logic cells. It costs about
$195 for the board alone (I had a limit of $200). I have access to any
necessary test equipment in the lab in which I am working. I am
planning to use this board to learn things like cross-compiling the
Linux kernel, installing the kernel and device drivers (if they are
available), developing simple programs, etc., It looks like a good
option because I can also experiment with Verilog/VHDL programming.

Has anyone already worked with this board before ? Is it a good
investment for a beginner hobbyist ? Are there better/cheaper
(beginner) alternatives out there ?

I am familiar with the Linux OS and I have been developing
applications in C/C++ for a while. I have just started reading about
Kernel internal, device drivers, etc., and I looking forward to
beginning my journey into Embedded Linux.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in Advance,
Vijay.