RE: why linux?

JT,

I switched to the Mac at home when OS X was released back in 2001.  It is a
very solid and easy to use OS with great applications available for it.
Also, the price of the hardware is not as overpriced as you might think and
the quality is very high.

To answer some of your questions, if you have a high dependency on MS
Office apps, then you really should just go with Office for Mac.  If you
just want to be able to read files then there are options.  The next
version of OS X, Panther, has can read Word documents with its built in
TextEdit app (which is kind of like WordPad).

Apple has been rumored for years to come out with a replacement for
AppleWorks which has Office compatibility, but so far they have only
released an app called Keynote, which is a very capable replacement for
PowerPoint.

There are also third party products like Nisus Writer.
http://www.nisus.com/  There is also a Spreadsheet that started as an OS/2
app called Mesa 3.  http://www.plsys.co.uk/products/mesa/

I am not aware of any one app that is a 100% replacement for Visio, but
there is a very nice OS X app called OmniGraffle that replaces most of it.
http://www.omnigroup.com/  If that doesn't have some feature you depend on
then there are others.

Finally, Microsoft sells an app called Virtual PC which lets you run
Windows, and any Windows app on the Mac.  I believe they are even bundling
it now with Office Pro.  It is actually a nice deal because for a price
that is less than Office Pro for Windows, you get Office and Virtual PC
with Windows XP Pro.  As long as you have decent hardware, this app works
pretty well for running those one or two niche apps that you might have
that only run on Windows.

The Eclipse IDE also runs on OS X, but not WDSC.

I mainly use it for home stuff, like iTunes and iPhoto.  I just recently
made an awesome DVD for my daughters 2nd Birthday using iMovie and iDVD.
All of these apps come with OS X and Windows has nothing like it.  I also
have an iPod and use the iTunes Music Store regularly.

Mark