Heya all. I've come to you guys once again because I honestly feel like this is the only place on the net that will give me good, factual, straightforward answers...so hopefully some clouds can be lifted today.
 
I have been (somewhat reluctantly) a Microsoft user since my first PC, which had MS 3.1. I've stuck in there through the ME's and 95's...but quite frankly...I'm getting a little sick of M$. Their software doesn't feel as good as it used to...even on the same OS (updates must make this possible lol).
 
Now, all of a sudden, there is...probably more than I can remember...a mass-following of and switching to Linux (Ubuntu namely). However...as was the case many years ago when I considered switching...I am skeptical for a few reasons. Call them what you will, but a lot of it is probably misinformation/lack of knowledge.
 
While I know it has a lot to do with personal opinion...my main question is...is it time for me to make the switch? It is hard for me to consider it because...I guess I have two opposite parts battling each other lol...
 
Part I - the programmer, sorta...)
I am an intermediate level programmer (mostly program things in PHP, CSS/XHTML, and would like to learn more software-based programming, like C++, if that makes sense). I use a 'lot' of programs in any given week...and I want to make sure, for the better part, they are compatible. Here is a list of programs I use most/how often I use them:  
 

• Photoshop - weekly

Dreamweaver - 3-4 times a week
CuteFTP - daily
Navicat - almost daily
several (2-3) PHP/CSS designers - daily
Ventrilo - almost every waking moment, more so than any program
Trillian - some, but I could learn to do without
and sometimes...mIRC
 
Part II - and maybe the bigger part, the gamer)
I play a fair share of games on my PC currently...including CABAL Online, World of Warcraft (not as much anymore), Final Fantasy XI, Counter-Strike, Starcraft and a few others when I see something that looks good (the above I play/have played almost religiously lol...)
 
I do not want to abandon my PC 'habbits' as it is now (games/programming), but I am...maybe more so than ever...ready to accept change into my little world heh.  
 
So...what do you guys think? Would Linux run what I need it to run?  
 
I know WINE has come a L-O-N-G way, but will I be able to tell I am running programs on an emulator (lag/graphic/quality/bug wise)?
 
I really appreciate the help...because as each day passes...I think I begin to hate M$ more and more and more AN....well, you get the idea . Sorry for the millions of questions, but as I said...I know I can trust the THW bunch!

Hey
 
Welcome to the Linux section.
 
Linux is worth checking out, it's a damn good OS and a great learning experience and good to have on your PC even if it's not your full time OS.
 
You can dual boot initially and gradually move over to Linux to ease the transition or jump in and leave windows in the dust.
 
 
Now on to the good news and bad news, read on................
 
Photoshop - weekly
Photoshop 5, 6 and 7 should run under WINE or Crossover Office, Photoshop CS should run on WINE / Cedega with some issues
 
Dreamweaver - 3-4 times a week
Dreamweaver MX  should run with some issues
 
CuteFTP - daily
You don't need it
 
Navicat - almost daily
Navicat has a Linux version and there are many other tools that do what Navicat does
 
several (2-3) PHP/CSS designers - daily
there are several tools for programming C/C++/PHP/Perl/Python etc.
 
Ventrilo - almost every waking moment, more so than any program
Ventrilo server runs on Linux, the Linux client is under development, software similar to ventrilo runs on Linux including skype
 
Trillian - some, but I could learn to do without
and sometimes...mIRC  
Kopete, Pidgin and various other IM clients exist for Linux and provide universal IM capabilities much like trillian does
 
 
 
 
CABAL Online
doesn't work
 
World of Warcraft
works
 
Final Fantasy XI
doesn't work
 
Counter-Strike
works
 
Starcraft
works
 
 
 
http://games.cedega.com/gamesdb/
 
http://appdb.winehq.org/
 
http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/
 
GL

I'd say that yes, wine certainly has come quite a long ways. Starcraft does run  fairly well now with the show stopper (for me at least) that it has a nasty tendency to do random battle.net disconnections. It used to run SC pretty slowly for whatever reason, but now the performance is on par (if not better than) running it on windows.  You seriously might want to consider dual booting like Linux_0 said in order to get a feel and make the transition gradually. There is SO MUCH you can do with linux, but it is also nice to have windows around for that ever decreasing list of things it can do that linux can't. Also, i'd highly recommend looking for a 30-day trial version of either CrossoverOffice or cedega (if they are available) in case WINE doesn't catch everything for you, and if they work out, by all means buy those programs/subscribe.
 
Also, since I like to use TeamSpeak to talk to my buddies whenever we play starcraft and i know for a fact that it has a pretty good working linux client, so you might want to look into that if you can't get a copy of ventrilo for linux.
 
As for trillian and mIRC replacement, you can get all of that in pidgin (formerly gaim). Pidgin is pretty nice and lightweight, but its lightweight nature means that it may not fully support everything for all protocols (such as custom MSN smilies and other junk like that). Personally i am not a fan of its IRC interface (although i love it for AIM/MSN), so for IRC i use XChat, which is a really nice program.
 
As for all of your programming needs, seriously, you are in the right place. There are only about 10^9-1 tons worth of programing tools in linux that are available FOR FREE. They seriously don't say that linux is the programmer's dream OS without good cause! If you don't like doing all command line programming though, there are also frontends with nice GUIs for program development (like ECLIPSE for java and several other languages including C/C++), so just browse around and I am sure you will find something that will work out nicely for you.  
 
Above all else, keep and open mind, remember that this is a different system so not all of your windows programs may work on it, and don't feel overwhelmed by all of your new found choice! The choices are there to empower you and let you do whatever it is that you want to do with your computer, which is the way it ought to be!
 
-Zorak
 
P.S. There are several different distributions that you can try, so try a bunch of different ones and see what you like, and if you can't find help/support for that distribution at their forums, either try a different distro's forums or try here or try using a different distro and see if it makes things easier for you.
 
P.P.S Ubuntu and LinuxMint are good places to start in your distro search if you are really new to all of this business.

 
The only thing I would say is that I've yet to come across a C++ development environment on Linux that's as good as MS VC on Windows; and I'm the kind of person who'd rarely use the words 'good' and 'Microsoft' in the same sentence . MS VC has some annoying bugs, but it also has features that I really miss on Linux.
 
On the plus side, Eclipse seems pretty good for Java and you can find pretty much any language you might want for free. I'm even tempted to have a go at Ada programming again to see if I can remember any of it .

You know you're not the first person I've heard saying good things about the current Visual Studio offerings. A friend of mine that has been a long time Delphi fan (financial software) made the switch a couple of years ago and never looked back. He describes it as the best development enviornment he has ever found. Not being a programmer I've never used it but it's rare that my friend gets enthusiastic about an IDE...