If you have a high-speed network connection, you should try Debian. I've been using it for years with no trouble. As long as you have relatively new hardware (not much more than five years old) and don't have hardware bits that are specially made for manufacturers like Dell, Gateway, etc., Debian should install real easily.
Download the network install ISO (netinst.iso) for the stable release. Burn the image to a CD, then boot from the CD. Once you get through most of the install, you'll get to select the 'type' of software you want. Initially, stick with Desktop and Standard.
After a single reboot, the install will complete and start the GUI. You should then be ready to explore GNU/Linux.
Personally, I don't care for the default window manager; I prefer KDE. For software, I use:
- konqueror and iceweasel for web browsing,
- kmail for email,
- acrobat for PDFs,
- GnuCash for personal finance,
- GIMP for image manipulation,
- ImageMagick for batch image processing,
- SANE (xsane, etc.) for my scanner,
- scanbuttond (with my own script mods) to enable the scanner's buttons,
- OpenOffice for word processing and typesetting, and, of course,
- xterm for command line work (which is most of what I do).
Most of this software should be installed with the Desktop selection. You may have to search the net for a couple things.
I recently added an EXT3 filesystem to share data with Windows. Yes, there is a Windows EXT3 driver, and it works well. There is also a R/W NTFS driver that's part of the latest 2.6 kernel; I've had no trouble with it. There are a few esoteric Windows functions that the driver doesn't handle and, of course, it does not deal with Windows' access rights system: once you mount the filesystem, you can access the whole thing.
Debian ably handles USB hard drives, most 'standard class' USB devices (like serial and parallel ports, flash drives and n-in-1 devices), 'generic' syncing with PDAs and PDA phones, IDE, SCSI and SATA drive, RAID using the md driver, and many other things.
I've had few issues with Debian. One, it wouldn't recognize my ancient joystickman joystick (can't find Win drivers for it any more either, and the unit should be tossed in the dust bin, so it doesn't matter), and xfig (a nice technical drawing program) gave me a SIGSEGV error and crashed the other day.
If I need to install some software, I run aptitude, find it, select it, and go. I rarely have to go outside Debian to find programs for specific tasks.
If you are new to GNU/Linux, be prepared to install Debian several times: on general principle, to learn, and perhaps because you royally screwed the system.
If you have the newest CPU with hardware virtualization support, you should be able to load up Xen and create virtual systems for GNU/Linux, Windows and other OSen.
As to 64-bit, it's nice, works well, but certain everyday things don't exist yet, like acrobat and flash. Yes, there are FOSS versions, but they are still too young yet for general use. I ran 64-bit Debian for a few months on my dual dual-core AMD system, but switched back to 32-bit for these reasons.
About the only things I use XP for are Adobe Illustrator (GNU/FOSS versions are not yet mature enough), Diablo (about the only game I own), and doing some development for a custom Palm-III application I dreamed up. I do darn near everything else with GNU/Linux. And have done so for around seven years now. (Before that, I used BeOS for a few years, but that's another story. I still have my original Be Boxes.)
Once you're reasonably familiar with GNU/Linux, get a copy of DD-WRT ( www.dd-wrt.com ) for your gateway/router, if it's supported. It's Linux, and has much the same functionality, although it's reduced to fit those embedded systems.
Go for it. Wipe out Windows and start using GNU/Linux. You won't be sorry.
