Sounds great being able to use H/W for longer but what I have never fully understood is about the actual software that runs on Linux, is it dedicated software or Windows based software? And if it is dedicated software, where is it available from etc? Sounds like it might be expensive and difficult at the same time to replace all the useful Windows SW with Linux versions, and what about games etc. I really don't know enough about this, so it keeps putting me off from making the switch, but now finances are becoming far tighter and for at least, to continue with Windows based gear, I'll need to upgrade to version 11 and that needs a total replacement of my current H/W 
Hmmm..... looks like you are not a good candidate for Linux then.
Games forget about it. Unless we are talking Sudoku and Solitaire of course.
S/W ? Well you get it from a "store" like you install apps on your Google/Android smarthpone (Android is just one of a million different flavours of Linux).
Or you can go straight to the vendors website and download their S/W. Like Kicad fo example. If you go to their download page they offer packages for various Linux flavours, as well as Windows and even Apple computers.
But most major S/W vendors do not support Linux. You will not find MS Office for Linux.... so you will have to be happy (or not) with the Linux counterpart(s).
Problem when trying to "convert" to Linux is, does it support your existing H/W ? Most H/W vendors do not support Linux, or poorly, and waiting for the Linux community to write their own driver is hit and miss. So if you want to switch to Linux to save money, might not be the best.
If you expect to just go buy the latest and greatest printer and just expect it just work, you will be disappointed. You have to select your H/W based on what drivers are available at a given time. Of course writing drivers takes time and if nobody is interested in writing one for your particular device, bad luck.
However, if there is a driver for your device, then as I said, you can be pretty sure it will still be there and working in 10 or 20 years time, out of the box, turn key. That's the beauty.
You need to assess what it is that you want to do with your computer, today and tomorrow. Are you prepared to make some compromises and spend some time to get up the learning curve, posting on forums... if not, give up.
If you want a gaming machine then forget about it, stick to Windows or well, get a game console that's what it's for after all...
If your needs like me are basic, web access, playing music watching pics and movies, it's wonderful.
If you need a specific piece of S/W then you can try to run it inside a Windows Virtual Machine. I do that, I have Windows XP in a VM, But of course a VM is not magical and has limitations too.
In other words, the devil is in the detail... you will not know if Linux (or FreeBSD as Saskia mentioned, or any other OS that's not Windows) suits you until you actually try it, and give it a chance.
You can download the install CD for Ubuntu for example (the most popular Linux distro since many years now), and just boot your computer from it. Linux will then run entirely from RAM (it won't touch your data/ hard drive don't worry). This way you can see if it supports your H/W, and you can play around with it. You can access the data from your drives if you choose to, for a more realistic test drive, pun intended forgive me....
This would be the first step, it's quick and easy.
Then next step you could install Linux in a virtual machine on your Windows computer. This way you can spend more time playing with Linux without disrupting your every day work flow, no need to reboot the machine, you can stay in your Windows environment while testing Linux harmlessly at the same time. The virtual machine can share data between Windows and Linux so you can see how the Linux S/W handles your files, detect problems, potential show stoppers or what not...
Generally speaking, do it progressively, one step at a time... do not just wipe your Windows machine all of a sudden then install Linux hoping everything will be alright, that's a recipe for disasters...
Linux is not for every one, just like Windows or Apple or anything that's different from what one has presently, is not either. You have to try it for some time to see if it works for you.
As for me, I switched to Linux 20 years ago originally because I friend introduced me to it and at the same time I happened to be upgrading my machine. New motherboard was not supported by Windows 95 anymore, so was forced to install Win XP instead. This in turn meant my scanner would not work anymore, as it was an old SCSI AGFA scanner that was not supported anymore, so no XP driver. Old driver was Win 3.1, would still work on Win95 but not in XP.
Well I noticed that this scanner somehow worked out of the box on Linux ! So that was a major driver for me.
Then over time I noticed I would spend more and more of my time on Linux and less and less on Windows, so I just gave up on Windows altogether and just sticked with Linux. Then over the years I got to appreciate more and more things about Linux, while at the same time watched Windows evolve/degrade after each and every release... to the point that today there is absolutely no way I would give up Linux to go back to Windows, even if I got paid for it.
YMMV as always...
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