Where to download linux?

I think linux is a hard thing to start because its has so many options which is why its an easy thing to make work once you convert.

fedora is a testing ground for red hat and as such it is very volitile as compared to other distros

you might want to take a look at centos, its a clone of redhat enterpise and as such is much more stable.

www.centos.org is the link.

redhat docs work with centos, and redhat el rpms work with centos as well.

There are a host of other distros as well, they each have strong and weak points

check out www.distrowatch.com for a comparisons/writeups of each.

in the end, its your choice, but this should give you plenty of help in making that choice.

Rance

I have always used RedHat/Fedora for my linux boxes but it will all come down to preference.  I use RedHat/Fedora because that is what I started.  Ubuntu has become pretty popular and has a wide support community.  They also have a desktop edition and server edition available.  Since you are starting out with Linux you probably want to go with one of the popular distros so that you will find plenty of support on the web.  The top ones I would recommend are:

Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntu.com/)
RedHat Fedora (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/)
openSUSE (http://en.opensuse.org/Welcome_to_openSUSE.org)

Check out www.distrowatch.com - they sell CDs/DVDs, but they also have download links for virtually every major linux distro and then some.

KUbuntu for out of the box working and full linux feel distrebution, not difficult.
What i like about it is that even though its friendly, it loses the linux feel unlike others that think easy = microsoft like interface.  And it works.
What i dont like about it, is that it is a little difficult (for me) to do some technical stuff like compiling.
http://www.kubuntu.org/

Mandriva. Works.  A little more technical.  Good place if you actually want to learn linux and not too lazy.  I like it because it still work out of the box, and i can play around with technical stuff.
What i dont like are some modifications that take away the original linux feel.  (True for both)
http://www.mandriva.com/en/download

And if you are really up to it. Make your own. Thats what i did eventually. I LOVED the experience.  True linux feel, and you are fully in control.
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

all linux distributions are free.  I would suggest that you go for fedora for a simple reason, that you already have someone using it and can provide some valuable inputs when you run into any trouble.  

When one is in the learning phase, it pays to have some mentor who can guide you through a rough patch.  Once you are conversant, then you can always try your hand with the flavor that you personally prefer.

Hi,speedbit,
Give yourself favour and skip Fedora since it's not really beginner frendly , firstly.
Second you have to download five CD or one DVD  iso .disk image files which is time consuming.
You might wish to go for Ubuntu but then you'll spend hours if not days trying to add supporrt for mp3, playing DVD movies, and other non free appliactions like RealPlayer,Adobe Reader, Flush mplayer on so on.
If you want Ubuntu based distro then go for MintLinux ( http://www.linuxmint.com )
If full support for multimedia is what you're looking for then go with ZenWalk Linux
( http://www.zenwalk.org  ) or better yet
super-speedy VectorLinux 5.8. ( http://www.vectorlinux.com )
What  would I suggest is great , unbeatable
PCLinuxOS ( http://www.pclinuxos.com )
To get an idea how good PCLinuxOS is you can download somewhat scaled-down version called  SAM linux . Both PCLinuxOS and SAM Linux are LIVE-CD distributions you can boot your computer from and if everything is OK ( hardware detection, look and feel) you can then install distro on your hard-disk.

> all linux distributions are free.

TECHNICALLY true, but in reality NOT TRUE.  IF you know linux well enough to compile the system yourself, all distros are free... if you don't, then some distros (such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux) are NOT free.

leew:  I stand corrected.  Sorry about the mis-info.  

was just thinking about the various flavors that was posted over here and got a bit carried away.  

RedHat Linux, Fedora variants are free but the Enterprise versions need to be paid for.

For my personnal use, my choice turn on Debian for server applications use and kubuntu for an desktop use of Unix.
Debian (that use Linux kernel) (depending on wich version) is stable and is compatible with a lot of Unix stuff!
Kubuntu (that use linux kernel because its based on debian but with a more uptodate kernel) is free, easy to install / use,contains continuous updates and as a huge community (if you include Ubuntu users).