Switching over...ADVICE PLEASE
 

I am thinking about reformating and switching over to linux. I currently have windows XP professional. The thing is, COMPATABLITY! I know wine works, but i think you have to pay for it and I think that It's not compatable with everything. Also, Internet. I installed Fedora on my dell, and I needed to boot off a disk, couldn't get sound, and I couldnt get online. That is my issue. I'm having trouble. ADVICE PLEASE

Well,for starters,wine is a free software.You can download it without thinking about paying (you can contribute monetarily towards it's development :http://www.winehq.org/site/contributing#wpf ) .Sure,it's not compatible with every microsoft software,but it's hard work and ports will take some time get through testing).You can use for most common windows programs though.Just check the rating for the product. Please elaborate on your hardware config to get a better answer.

Wrong. Wine is Free. You may have to pay for WineX.
You can use OpenOffice instead of MSOffice, Evolution instead of Outlook, Mozilla or Firefox instead of IE.
Linux is certainly not compatible with Viruses ;)
Browse the Laptop section you may find an answer to the no sound problem.