Very New to Linux. Help GREATLY APPRECIATED!
 

Hi! I am very new to Linux and I have a lot of questions. If someone would take time to answer them it would be greatly appreciated! I know Linux is an operating system and there are many MANY versions. Are all of them free? If so where can I get them? I looked around on Red hat.com and it said you had to pay to download it. I have also seen distrobutions like Knoppix, Ubuntu, Suse, and Fedora. Are any of those free? What is the difference?- I know this question could require a MASSIVE answer so if you could direct me to a chart or another post that would be cool too! What distrobutions are best for a beginner? What is Myth TV? I have an extreme tech magazine and it showed Myth TV and it looked cool. Is it free and where can I get it? What are some cool applications that are Linux based? Like word processors and internet explorers. Are they free? Are windows applications operatable on Linux based systems? I heard you can't play games unless you get wine. What is wine? Is it free? This next question is a little wierd. Do any Linuxs let you cluster computers? I read about Windows server doing that but I am not wanting to pay my life away for that program. Hope you can answer some of these questions! Thank you for your time!

Yes, everything is free in both sense of the word.

The diference between different distributions is two big to list here, just search on Google.

Myth TV is a program used to watch and record TV programs on a computer. Wine is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on Linux, you can't play 3D Windows games on it as Wine does not iplement Direct3D access. There is a service called WineX or Cedega, which lets you play Windows games for $3/month. And yes, Linux lets you cluster computers. Some games such as Unreal Tournament, Quake and Doom can be natively run on Linux.

There are an infinite amount of word-processors and browsers, you could again search on Google for different ones. The most popular are OpenOffice and Firefox.

Just to add to saman007uk's post... it would be worthwhile browsing the descriptions of the major distributions at the distrowatch site. They explain the advantages of the inidividual distros, and also say whether they have a free download available or not.

check out http://www.distrowatch.com and for a beginner distro I would reccomend you ubuntu or suse

Ubuntu seems to be pretty user friendly so far and the software packaging is excellent. There is a program called synaptic that has packages grouped by type that have been tested and are downloaded from a trusted site and are mostly free to use. There are a few non-free programs but in most cases there is a free version or a suitable replacement.