difference

[Mahakrishnan]

i am very new to linux so pls tell me what is fedora,ubuntu,linux

[hazel]

Linux is the name of the basic operating system. Think of it as equivalent to Windows.

Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian and so on are varieties of Linux. They are called distributions. Each has different features: some distributions are very novice-friendly, others are more for experts; some run well on old hardware, others have lots of eye-candy and need a big computer; some use the latest bleeding-edge software and some use only tried and tested versions of programs. They are all free to try, so you should be able to find one that suits you down to the ground.

[MASONTX]

Go to distrowatch.com, they have hundreds of distro's available for download, a good search tool, and brie descriptions of each distro. Search for beginner distro's and what ever else you need, such as old computer, netbook, etc. Download the ISO image and burn it to a cd or dvd. Set your bios to boot 1st from the cd/dvd, insert your cd/dvd into the tray and reboot. This will boot you into a live cd/dvd, an operating version of the distro that is running from the disc not the hard drive. This will let you see if that distro works with your hardware, and if you like the features of that distro. If you like the distro, it will have an option to install to the hard drive, a process that takes about 20 minutes, depending on distro.
The distro's come with a limited number of programs pre-installed. Once you have a distro installed, you can go to the reository (on line library) for that distro and download as much software as you want for free. The software is different than windows, for example the word processors are open office, libre office, abi word, etc. instead of microsoft word. If you have a windows game or program you just must have, you can try the program "wine" which allows you to run some windows programs in linux.
Be sure to try different distro's based on the different branches of linux, such as debian, ubuntu (which is based on debian), red hat, and slackware, to name a few. Also try different desktops, gnome, kde, lxde, and xfce being the main ones. I like gnome and lxde, but other s swear by kde or xfce, it depends on what matches your preference. If you find a distro that you like, but prefer a different desktop, the desktop can be changed. If you use re-writable media, you can try as many distro's as you want with out wasting media. Play around with linux and have fun.

[gdawg]

Hi, I have nothing to add except welcome to Linux and this forum.

Cheers

[Mudgen]

Adding just a little to Hazel's excellent response:

Fedora and Ubuntu differ most in their approach to package management (updates and add-ons). One is based on the rpm packaging concept, the other on deb (Ubuntu has its roots in Debian, but has branched off). Both are very good approaches. There are other qualitative differences, and each camp has its avid proponents. I support Red Hat rpm-based systems at work all day, so it's comfortable for me to support Fedora at home. You should use whichever one you find suits you best.

[ramin.honary]

Operating systems are made of hundreds of parts, each part is a bit of software. In a Linux system everything else is customizable. Unlike Windows or MacOS, you don't have to stick to the setup they tell you to use.

Because of this, anyone can make their own custom Linux and let anyone else download it as a single package. They call this package a "distribution". Some of these customized packages are enormous projects involving millions of customers, hundreds thousands of developers, several large companies, and billions of dollars in investments per year.

Debian and RedHat are the largest distributions. The big difference between them is how to install software. This is actually a very important difference, because on Linux, you should not just copy software to your computer. You need to download it and install it from a place you trust.

Some companies, like Canonical, take a larger distribution like debian and package it up into a user-friendly version targeted towards Windows/Mac users. Canonical has Ubuntu and Mint. The only difference is the what goals they try to achieve. Linux Mint tries to be the easiest to install and use for Windows/Mac users, Ubuntu tries to be a more general, look-nice, be easy but powerful kind of operating system.

[Toadbrooks]

Excellent answers above. I support RedHat at work, but use Ubuntu at home, which is somewhat different that others. But what I wanted to add is that lots of distributions offer a public and a pay version, for example Fedora and RedHat, which both come from RedHat. Many people believe that such distributions use the free version to test stuff for the pay version, but often the improvements don't make it back to the free version. Ubuntu is one of the very few exceptions to this, having only one version and attempting to make their money off of support.

[Rubberman]

I use a 64-bit Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) clone on my main workstation, Scientific Linux (SL), and Ubuntu (both 9.04 32-bit and 10.10 64-bit) on my laptop. Each has its uses, though I spend most of my time on SL. As noted by others, there are many Linux distributions, each of which has its strengths and weaknesses. If you are currently running a Windows system and wish to check out these different distributions, then I suggest you download VirtualBox which is a virtual machine manager, and with that you can install/run various Linux distributions inside your Windows OS without mucking with the system other than using up some disc space.