As a fellow novice (we both brewed our first batch on the same day), I have to say after the advice of some on here I HIGHLY recommend a 6.5 gallon glass carboy. The large size does make it HEAVY (I had to very carefully carry it full from my kitchen down to the basement and its no joke). But to me the benefits easily outweigh the negatives. Having 6.5 gallons lets you be pretty confident you will never have issues with clogging (unless making a type that is expected to cause problems), having glass was very important to me since I had no idea what an actively fermenting system looks like (it's quite amazing), and it takes a lot of guess work out of "is it OK", "do I still have a large krausen layer", etc.
But by far the best thing is the cleaning. You can use any harsh chemical you want, without having to worry about damaging the glass. You can scrub it with basically anything, and be sure its exactly the same as when you started. I deal with sterilized glassware all day in the lab and its comforting to know I can use the same caustic nasty reagents to make sure there is no chance of leaving contaminants in the bottle.
Oh and as for the light, after the first day or two of staring in amazement, I wrapped the bottle in a thick black trashbag to prevent light from getting in. Boom, just as effective as the plastic buckets, but without the oxygen permeability. My 6.5 gallon glass carboy was $33 from the local brew store and of very solid construction (probably weighs 10-15 lbs empty). BTW, my seconday is a 5.0 gallon glass carboy (don't want extra head space due to oxidation issues). And finally I got a 5 gallon bottling bucket (plastic, basically what you have for the primary but with a spigot on the bottom).
Couldn't have done it right the first time without the help of the folks on here and the free online book by John Palmer.
HTH,
justin