Welcome to the forums, and to the greatest show on earth!
I was in your boat once, I picked up the game purely for the PR experience, and I never regretted it.
First off, as others said, a Mic is one of the most important aspects of a great PR experience, its like playing an MMO offline if you dont have one, i.e it will get boring eventually.
Reading the manual is a great start, and I would recommend downloading each part of PR before your BF2 arrives, so you can jump right into it. Follow these instructions to set up your PR, you will need to download the BF2 Patches before playing too.
Installation Instructions Here
Next, when you first launch PR, go into Co-Operative > Local > New (or something like that) And choose the Basrah infantry layer and then put the AI into any difficulty you want, probably good to put it in lowest so you can acclimatise to PR.
Just pick the general Rifleman kit, and then get going and try and get used to the way that weapons work, remember everything you learned from the manual.
After doing this a couple of times, and you feel you could participate as a squad, jump into an Online game.
Good servers to start off on are PRTA, UKWF and NWA (as Jigsaw mentioned) and if you just want a bit of fun, I remember the =]H[= (Hardcore) servers are good for that.
Probably the best server for teamwork is Tactical Gamer, although to get maximum enjoyment factor, Mumble (
Check it out HERE) is an invaluable addition. Check the link to find out more about it, its incredibly simple, and makes PR so, so much better (I know, I didnt think it was possible either)
Lastly, have fun. A lot of people take the game seriously, and unless your a Universal Soldier some people will kick you from their squad. Dont get put off by these idiots, nobody really likes them. On the contrary, some people who play this game, do it as a group of friends, and may see you as an outsider, meaning the squad wont work correctly. Its good to join a squad with a generic name (INF, VOIP INF, ENG VOIP etc) rather than join a squad with a name like "Nubcakes", "trolololo", or "l33t", as these are usually groups of people who regularly play with each other, although sometimes its just a person trying to be funny.
Join any squad, and follow the below -
Kicked in first second without speaking - its a group of people that know each other/are waiting for someone - Dont try and join it again.
Kicked after they know your new - leave the squad alone, just a bunch of jerks
Not kicked - ask squad leader what kit he wants you to take, tell him you are new. Also recommend to the SqLeader that (if he asks you) you shouldnt take a special kit (Such as HAT, LAT, Sniper, AA etc) as you will most likely fail, and possibly put the entire squad in harms way. Honestly gets you further than bluffing
Finally - Dont take the Sniper kit, its not cool
Once again, welcome to PR, and dont get put off by anything, its truly the best thing ever invented once you get to love it!
Edit- Damn I took a long time to write this, a lot has already been covered, but still, hope its of use