Hey arran,
I've not got a website as of yeat but I'm thinking of going with the basic low package from 1 and 1, think its about £2 per month or something like that, its got 250 meg webspace and a 3 Gb traffic limit, which for an online portfolio I doubt that I would ever get that much traffic!!
I'm sure that you can sign up for one of these and then upgrade as you go along, if you need to.
The bit that confuses me though is the linux/Ms servers, whats the difference and if I'm just making a little site using CSS/XML does it even make one?
"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle