Commuting - New commuter

Aloha! After a few years driving and riding motorcycles i got into a spot of trouble and decided to let driving go. That was a year ago and since then i've made my way catching the bus and riding bmx. I loved riding flatland and street on my little bike, but getting around was a nightmare. 20in wheels, no brakes, etc. After a few close calls and a need to get around more since i moved to Aiea, I've decided to buy a commuter bike to do my getting around. Only problem is I don't know where to start.

My best piece of advice-- don't buy a compact sport bike-- I did, Giant OCR 3-- big mistake. For commuting you will want something with fenders, rack, lights, etc.

If you have 600 bucks buy a breezer uptown, if you have 75 bucks buy a used older ten speed that will accept fenders, racks, etc, or a mountain bike anywhere but Walmart that will also accept all the stuff you need.

Or I can make you a heck of a deal on a giant ocr 3 :P

How far. How much luggage (shopping trips etc), How big/steep hills. How much wet/bad weather, and rough roads.
There is no one pattern for a commuter bike, they range all the way from singlespeed racing bikes, through touring and hybrid, to roadified MTBs and folding bikes.
You generally want something mid-range and mid-spec, not ultra-light racing kit, and not heavyweight "leisure" riding.
I like my sport-touring road bike for general purpose riding.

The ride is about 10 miles each way. There is one big hill but its not a problem, I've done it on my bmx bike. Im in Hawaii so the weather is fine except for occasional rain. I want to buy a complete and then add to or subtract as neccessary. I carry a backpack, but i plan on using fenders and lights.
I've seen things like 29in and single speed setups, How are those for commuting.

I like single speed bikes, if I wanted a prebuilt one I would probably go with the Van Dessel Straight up-- theres a guy selling em dirt cheap on Ebay-- free shipping too, but not to hawaii.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3649186801&category=7298

Here's some links to a couple of good commuter pages:
http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/commute/index.htm
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~pdorn/Commuting/commuting3.html

The main thing is range-- if you are going car free then take a look at how far you want to be able to ride on your bike-- if it's 20 miles consider a touring bike, less than that pretty much anything.

If 10 miles is about as far as you will ever go one way then a single speed might just be the thing.

Good luck man!

Dont use singlespeeds if you have a hill. They are really for flatland commuting.
My cutoff point for "performance" commuting is about 5-6 miles. Below that distance, anything will do. Above, you really want an efficient machine.

A drop bar, lightweight sport tourer, with a road triple chainset, and rack/fender fittings will be ideal. Get one fitted with longer reach brakes, so you can fit 28mm tyres. These are a good compromise between racing speed and touring reliability. You can always fit 25mm rubber and strip the bike down for a fast, fun road bike.