Okay, Mandriva, openSuse and Fedora are .rpm based and Ubuntu is .deb based. DEB and RPM are software "packages".
To compare this to windows - think of when you download a small game from the internet. It usually appear as an icon that you double click to install. The "icon" contains the software that will install to your c:\program files directory.
deb and rpm are similar to that, but be aware that most Linux distros come with a package management program that handles software installation for you. Clicking on rpms and debs may not work the way you would expect it to work in windows.
Another difference - mandriva and suse usually default to the KDE desktop environment and Fedora and ubuntu comes with the Gnome desktop environment.
These desktop environment are what you "see" i.e. the desktop and windows.
I am not sure about fedora and but mandriva, ubuntu, and suse have a live discs that you can download and try out without installing anything on your hard drive.
I suggest trying out the live discs first.
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