Linux Music Production

[Tod Hansmann]

I'm looking into a curiosity of making music of a digital kind (techno, 
jazz, folk?).  I have no budget for this, because it's a curiosity I've 
literally looked into for about 10 seconds.  Is linux a decent place to 
do this, or am I better looking at a trial of Fruity Loops on Windows or 
something like that?  Am I even in the right ballpark?  I do searches on 
this stuff and everything is talking about all this hardware like mixers 
and soundboards and samplers, and I think "why do I need this?  I 
thought software could handle this." and it's all over my head.

Anyone have a pointer in the right direction?

-Tod Hansmann