though it may be a bit to feature rich for a new person, so if keeping it simple is important for you then i would perhaps start with an ewallet at http://blockchain.info/
also consider that you can do a lot of really cool things these days with bitcoins on a smartphone. if you want to be able to transact fluidly with your friends irl than having the ability to scan qr codes is amazing. For this would recommend the blockchain.info android/iphone app. As a warning its a bit buggy, i wouldn't ever store large amounts here and i would test it for a little while with very small amounts before storing a moderate amount (the amount of cash you might carry in your wallet on a normal day).
i cant find a fedora version for it.
You should be able to build it from source http://bitcoinarmory.com/index.php/building-armory-from-source
Just remember that it needs the reference bitcoin-qt client to do anything.