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I think the main things you need to consider before jumping are the apps you run on top of the OS.

In a business environment you have to consider third party apps of which few release Linux versions. Insurance companies, pharmacies, car dealers and such usually rely on occupation specific apps that tie them into MS. If this is not your case (and you are considering for a business environment) then download Open Office (openoffice.org) and run it on windows to see how comfortable you are with it as an office product. This will be your biggest step. OSAS has a good cross platform accounting system that you can get your feet wet in Windows before you switch (not free though). As far as making the jump from Windows to KDE goes, it's no worse than a new version of windows.

As far as development goes, you should develop in the environment you are developing for. Web development still favors MS. I've found nothing in the Linux world that compares to Dreamweaver and Gimp comes in second to Photoshop. Perl and php have always been a text editor type of development so they don't matter (although KDE's text editor works great with color markup of just about any language).

As far as servers go, Linux has it hands down. MS has never been able to compete with *nix in this market.

Games... throw them in the trash and start over although there are many games released for Linux plus a whole bunch of free ones.

As far as stability goes, I've crashed them both. Like my ski instructor told me when I was young "It's not how many times you fall it's why you fall". Linux does have a stability record that is hard to argue with no matter where your loyalties lie.

If you do decide to make the jump be sure to check the hardware compatibility list for the distro that you've chosen. If you're running a newer Dell or IBM you shouldn't have many problems other than internal modems. Linux just won't take to WinModems in spite of several attempts by open groups. If you need a modem go out and buy an external one. Orinco/Lucent 802.11b works just fine with Linux. They are all the wireless products that I have experience with and I did beat my head against the wall a few days to get them going the first time I tried (several years and versions ago).

Cool stuff. Thanks.

I don't play many games, so those aren't an issue.

I mostly just use office, browser and email applications. (Word, Excel, Mozilla and Outlook).

My other main computer application is stock trading. Once I pass the bar and have money again, I will resume day-trading. I have seen one software package out there somewhere for technical charting and I am sure there are others.

Are there programs that convert files? For example, if I download an excel spreadsheet can I convert it to the Linux program without any hassle?

I haven't crashed XP, and in fact have only crashed one Microsoft system. Then again, I defrag and virus check regularly (at least 1 a week and usually more often), scan for spyware and have a firewall (zone alert).

I have one main issue with Microsoft, and that is cost. It amazes me that the evil empire charges as much as they do for their programs. I can't believe that they cost that much. I was pricing Red hat software awhile ago, and their basic package was incredibly cheap. I liked that.

I am a soon-to-be-attorney, and will probably work either independently or with a small firm.