HI I AM REALLY CONFUSED ABOUT WHICH LINUX DISTRIBUTION TO INSTALL . I JUST WANT TO GET AQUAINTED WITH THE LINUX ENVIRONMENT.WHAT MAY BE THE BEST OPTION FOR A STARTER .CURRENTLY I AM HAVING UBUNTU-FIESTY FAWN,DEBIAN AND LINUX 20007.

Hi
There's no need for capital letters.
If you are completely new to linux, you might want to stick to ubuntu feisty, it's very user-friendly.

Debian is very much like Feisty (in fact, it's Feisty's mom) so it doesn't make much of a difference whether you install Debian or Ubuntu. The latter may be a bit softer on the absolute beginner, although rumours that Debian is for kids while Debian is for experts are utter nonsense. PCLinuxOS is a good choice as well, maybe a bit easier than Ubuntu but it has far fewer software packages available, it doesn't have nearly the same amount of documentation / community sites and it doesn't have a 64 bit version (if that matters at all to you).

This great article by Ken Brebach might help:

http://desktoplinux.com/articles/AT7702650846.html

Essentially Linux distros are pre-packaged starting points. They each come with their own look-and-feel, admin tools, and software based. Some are minimalist, while others go for the all out user experience. I'd recommend trying Ubuntu and Fedora. Ubuntu is DEB based, and Fedora is RPM based. You get to see what each packaging system is like. Both provide decent GUI and CLI tools to see where you want to go.

Hello,

Besides Ubuntu being user-friendly, I have found it to be solid in the networking department. It recognizes Windows machines and locates the printer from a windows computer.

Overall, it has given me the opportunity to learn the Linux O/S and how to use it with other Operating Systems.

It comes packaged with the Open Office Suite which has a very good word processor and spreadsheet.

My recommendation is to install it!

i would recommend mandriva as it's very user friendly and as i am a beginner i find it very easy to use
paul

I would just go to distrowatch.com and try a bunch until you find one you like and stick with it