Linux makes a great rescue disk, and I’d love to use it everyday, but the compatibility problems and poor usability are too much. I try out four or five distributions every year.
I use this Fedora laptop at work in a Windows-centrric environment. There is only one application that I cannot run on it--a Lotus Notes-based database. They're moving that off to a web-based application in the near future, so I won't even have that to worry about.
It is fully compatible, if you know what you are doing.
The usability on Linux is just as great, if not greater, than anything Windows can provide.