lol when they say "VIRTUAL" studio technology its VIRTUAL meaning its not equipment connected into the computer/software. You can run VSTs with just your DAW (fruity loops) and with the VST you downloaded itself.
You don't need additional software for samples.....samples are just .aiff or .wav files that you can either cut yourself or can download them from sample packs.....I like the free ones on dogs on acid (by the way, that site is VERY good for learning electronic music production - its specialty is drum & bass but you can learn tricks that cross over to any genre), and with some effects shit starts sounding tasty. The samples I use now I took from my university's music library, they had a pretty good sounding sample pack. You can possibly t*rrent your sample packs, the best way to go about it is to just google your samples, if you are trying to produce a specific genre (ie electro house or dubstep or hip hop or something) search that and you can probably find quality sample packs.
And dont worry about the free version of fruity loops for now. Some of my most favoritest producers in the game started with fruity loops, and their first compositions are of course lost for eternity cause they couldnt save it! Its more important to develop the skills anyways...... you learn and improve by simply making music!
I also recommend downloading a program called Audacity, it has many uses - for one, you can record the output of your fruity loop songs just for listening purposes (it wont be high quality, mind you, but at least you can re-listen to your works). Second and more importantly, audacity is good software for conversion: if you rip audio from a youtube video or a movie to sample, you can use audacity to convert the audio format to whatever you need.
In terms of VSTs.........I use my DAW's built-in synths (Analog and Operator) just because they are what I've had the most experience with - again I recommend googling "Best free soft synths" or something along those terms. One I recommend is the Crystal soft synth, its pretty complicated but if you turn most of the extra features and extra waveforms off you can figure it out by just cutting the synth down to basics. In terms of general knowledge, try reading up on basic sound synthesis. Learn what a waveform is, amplitude, frequency, all that jazz.
Finally, when you start out,
you don't even need a synthesizer for your main synths. Why? You can just sample the hell out of whatever you like. This video truly shows the power of sampling, I'm still amazed every time I watch it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU5Dn-WaElI