wish to learn web design  

If you want to design a website for your own use (I mean not professional, but good enough to work) you can program it in HTML, it´s really easy and you have lots of open source softwares to do it. I use NVU (check in google for downloading it), then you have to download a template, and that´s it, you only have to add the content, it´s quite easy. There are also some websites that offers you the possibility of designing a website in flash for free, you can check, for example, http://www.wix.com/free/website , for free web hosting you can get 000space.com, it works really good. And you can also get free domains .co.cc
There are many ways to design a website, I strongly reccommend you to start with html and see how it works, if you get stucked, just type the problem in google, and you will find solutions.
Good luck.

Start with learning basic html
> htmldog.com have all
> w3schools.com it's really great resources for learning web-design...

as a web designer u also have to learn the design for the layout of your web
Try photoshop and framework
psdtuts.com
abduzeedo.com
tutorial9.com
>they're free charge websites...
:D
So after i get the design and mastering html..Learn Css,
Css really important for building website
htmldog.com
w3schools.com
csszengarden.com
try it yourself! :D

after all try to visit www.how-to-build-websites.com
Try googling more site, there are tons of webdesign tutorial

there are many free sites but i suggest u to check http://www.wetpaint.com/ which is one of the best free sites and its in top 5 website servecies.. it got all features and its easy to create for biggners so check it out u like it :)