At first you should read Linux is not Windows.
You will not be able to run your Windows programs natively under Linux. You may get them to work with a tool called Wine, but there is no guarantee that this will work.
I would recommend to install an easy to use Linux, like Mint or Mepis, in a virtual machine to become familiar with it and look which programs can replace what you think you need.

You will miss iTunes. You can dowload wine and use that but it's still
buggy compared to Macintosh or windows.

You won't get Microsoft office etc as well.

Although there are substitutes nothing will replace Photoshop
if your comfortable with it (as far as I know)

What u will get is a look into the real world of computing, open source and open discussion.
You will get unlimited flexibilty while still being in a "controlled" environment.

I hope you do have a go at Linux. It may be tough but it's worth it.

Good luck and hopefully ......
Welcome to Linux !

Realistically speaking, "Linux is Linux, and Windows is Windows."

Windows, especially, is an environment, very tightly integrated. It has many components and frameworks and such, all built on top of the underlying operating system, all provided by exactly one vendor. It all works together, and, I think we must acknowledge, it works very well. "If that is what you need, then that is what you should buy."

Although the Wine project is interesting (and successful), it only implements a rather small portion of the Windows interfaces and facilities, which further goes to show you just how big Windows has become.

I do very strongly encourage you to "learn about Linux," because it is also a very major presence in the industry and you need to know it! But ... the two are not the same, and one will never replace the other. They will coexist side-by-side for many years to come (along with several other important systems), and quite deservedly so.

None. If you are going to run windows programs you should use Windows. Just like if you are going to play psp games you should buy a psp, and not a nintendo ds.

Otherwise, search for alternatives and see if they can fit you.

Instead of photoshop, you can use the gimp.

Instead of pascal, you could use the fpc (free pascal compiler) and lazarus.

A substitute for visual basic would be gambas.

If those can serve you well, then you can start worrying about what distro to choose.

Windows.

If you want Linux, use Fedora, or whatever you prefer. Then run VirtualBox inside of it and install Windows there.

Or dual boot into Windows.

There is no such thing as a 100% compatibly replacement for Windows. Sorry.

Use this: LibreOffice or OpenOffice

Not that! (Microsoft Office)

Use this! Gimp
Not that! (Photoshop)

Visual Basic? You might be able to use this Mono instead. Or you might not.

Also as szboardstretcher said, you might want to look into VirtualBox or VirtualBox-OSE. Even my non-technical wife can set it up.

Hope this helps!

In addition to what has been said: You need a slightly different mindset. It helps if you hate m$ and don't like paying for what others give away free. It doesn't help if you're talking to bone headed & inflexible academics.

You want an office suite, a picture editor, and a pascal layout. Those are trivial under linux using libre office, gimp & imagemagick, etc. Not really better or worse, but different. If you wanted to check your reiser formatted partitions under windows, it would probably be hell. Check them in linux. If you want to run some windows programs in linux, it would be awkward.

Is licensing the issue? You can probably save your salary in license fees each year by replacing the windows licensed software with linux units with OSS software if you're in a college or the like. Look ate CAELinux, and you'll have computer aided design tools to beat the band. Install Puredyne, and it's an audio station. There's another distro pointed at low level forensic stuff on the disk, ideal for other situations. Especially can servers be replaced. Debuggers, compilers, and the like are thrown in gratis in most distros. When did you ever see windows source code? It's all online in linux.

See the LQ list of equiv SW http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/...ndows_software

Thank Very much for replying my thread and answer my all question. I am very glad that all people here is friendly and very supportive to the member

By the this linspire, xandros and Linux xp is this easy to use like windows

Those are probably the worst possible choices for learning Linux. Linspire is dead, Xandros is dead, dumbed down, and partially proprietary, Linux XP is partially proprietary and it's mostly just the Windows-like theme that makes it different.

Linux is not Windows

I would recommend Mint (http://www.linuxmint.com/).

You just need to decide what your true objectives are ... then purchase the software environment to suit those objectives, knowing that you might well use more than one. "Virtualization" software is a big help here, because x86 chips can run virtual machines with great efficiency now.

For all the guff that Microsoft gets these days, only their marketing (sic...) department truly deserves it. They have sold millions of copies of their stuff, and, frankly, a lot of it is, "damm good." (Sure, you wind up marrying the whole family, but that's beside the point.) As far as the software engineers go, I think we're obliged to tip our hats in their general direction ... most (but not all!) of the time.

Linux ... Windows ... MVS (nee Z/OS) ... the list goes on and on and on. All of them have their place, and they will always co-exist. If you try to make a serious business justification for the disruptive change of "throwing out Windows to run Linux" (or, for that matter, vice-versa), you're almost certainly not going to be able to do it, because in the end, you care about "the result obtained, not so much the means of obtaining it."