I just bought a laptop that runs Windows 8. It has 4 GB of RAM, 500 GB of ROM, etc.
I'm getting ready to install Linux on it, but I'm a little sketchy. I purchased an extended warranty (3 year) for it. I have a couple questions.

Would installing Ubuntu void the warranty?
Would it be the optimum thing to do in general (speed-wise)?
Am I still able to do all the things I'd normally be able to do with my computer with Windows (run .exe files, install torrents, etc.) while running Linux?

I'm not entirely stupid when it comes to computers, but I'm new to Linux. I've written a couple posts on TTG (thetechgame, I'm more active there) but they never get answered. And I'm frankly getting annoyed. Thanks in advance!

Why not get a virtual machine monitor? Say, VirtualBox or VMWare? Why not leave Windows whatever-it-is alone, and let it be the host-OS for however many Linux VM's you might want?

Since Intel-compatible chips have excellent hardware support for virtualization, why not use it? External USB 2.0/FireWire disk drives are "cheap and big," too. (Hint, hint ...) Set up a VM, dedicate an external drive to it, do anything-you-want with it. Linux is happily running in a window on your existing desktop.

(That's how I always do it, these days. Leave the existing host, whatever-it-is, completely alone, and virtualize everything else that I want to run on the box.)

Possibly... seems like a good question for your computer's manufacturer/retailer, as opposed to some random strangers on the internet.

Your hardware is the speed that it is, regardless of which operating system you install. That said, Linux has a greater variety than one-size-fits-all Windows, so you can find Linux distributions or "distros" ranging from very lightweight to totally feature-packed.

No; Linux is a completely different operating system. It would be like switching from Windows to Mac, for example. Linux has excellent native software for surfing the web, creating office documents, torrenting, etc.

If you want to use Windows software then just run Windows (especially since you already have it installed).

If you're legitimately interested in learning Linux, installing it is not a bad thing to do (and certainly won't void the warranty). However, if you're expecting a free, open source version of Windows, you're likely to be dissapointed.

I can't stress this enough. If you are in any way timid about it or unsure... Run virtual machines before you do a bare metal install. I tried going bare metal and I lacked the patience for the learning curve ( I learn slow sometimes ). I must have installed *nix of some sort then re installed windows countless times before finding out about virtualbox. Save yourself a world of trouble and run this on windows before wiping it out and re-installing a linux distro... https://www.virtualbox.org/

Installing Linux will prevent you from getting software support from the manufacturer, but it won't void any hardware warranties, at least not on any of the machines I've ever dealt with. If you want to confirm then you should contact the manufacturer.

You can attempt to run some Windows software in WINE on Linux, but it only works for some programs. The best course of action is to find native Linux alternatives to the software you want to use (eg: Gimp instead of Photoshop, OpenOffice/LibreOffice instead of Microsoft Office, etc).

Won't let me edit my posts for some reason...

For whatever it's worth the latest Ubuntu likely won't run well on a vm. Something to do with removing Unity2d I think, not sure. Regardless I havn't been able to get it to run without stuttering in a vm since 12.04

To answer your questions I would say:
Installing Ubuntu might void your warranty, to be sure contact the manufacturer or the retailer from where you got it. If you dont want to mess up the current OS in your computer you can acquiare a black hard drive swap the current hard drive with the blanck one and install there. If something goes grown with the installation you can just put back the original one and it will be like nothing ever happened.

It might feel a little bit faster than Windows but really you are only one who could tell. So you can try install it and see how your computer behaves.

With Ubuntu or with any Linux Distribution you could be able to do everything you do in Windows, however you wont be able to run windows programs in Linux unless you use a type of emulator in Linux that will let you run windows applications. I have never done. But for sure there are a vast selection of applications that will do the same task you do in Windows.
Eg. Instead of Internet explore you will have Firefox and/or Chromium
Instead of Microsoft Office you will have Libre Office and/or Open Office
Instead of Windows Media Player you will have Mplayer, VLC, Gnome-Player, etc

So the point is for each windows application out there you will have a different application under Linux that does the same.

If you have any iDevices I must say that there is no iTunes for Linux
If you are a graphic designer there is no Photoshop for Linux, there is GIMP but I heard is not at the same level.
If you are a film maker there are some video editors in Linux and for what I heard they are getting better and better.
There is not natively NETFLIX under Linux neither. So better of buying a Chromecast for that purpose.

If you dont do any of the above you might be fine running Ubuntu or any Linux distro.

Another thing to consider is that you mentioned you computer runs W8. keep in mind these computer have locked the boot loader and chances are it wont boot a Linux Distro. But you can try and see what happened.

Good luck to you and enjoy the forums