I can't install Linux. /suicide?

So I tried to install Linux from Windows. I downloaded the package, opened it as a .iso, and put it on my flash drive with usb-creator or something along those lines.

For some odd reason I figured that it would ask me where it wanted me to store it (partitions, etc) once I got the flash drive to run through BIOS or whatever. ... Or something?

Like, boot>boot order>[Kingston USB]. And same thing for the hardware to use in the boot order (My thumbdrive instead of my harddrive).

I'm not quite sure what I'm doing wrong, but I'm kind of obviously a novice, so yeah.

When I do this, though, this is the only thing coming up on the screen:

SYSLINUX 3.82 2009-06-09 EBIOS Copyright (C) 1994-2009 H. Peter Anvin et al

I tried running PLOP Boot Manager to boot from the flash drive, I tried using Wubi, and I tried doing what I said above, but it all comes up with just that text. If I wait long enough (five or so minutes), it just restarts my computer and... goes back to the screen.

When I try installing with Wubi, I jut get a small bit of text in parentheses: (hdr0,0)

Halp?

Oh, and by Linux I mean Ubuntu.

I realize that there are like a million versions of Linux FFS, I'm an idiot.

lol ubuntu

wrong architecture?

wubi is an exe

install gentoo

Linux is NOT an operating system like windows, is a kernel. Kernel are the backbone of the Operating system yet not enough. The windows equivalent to linux is win32api (you don't see people run it alone, do you).
If you want to use an operating system that uses linux pick one here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions
however if you want to build Linux from Scratch you might need a manual.
Easiest install-able Linux-OS: Ubuntu
Easiest Linux-OS built from scratch: Gentoo