I plan to invest time in Linux but have been too busy to try out just anything. So I'm trying to layout first, the ways & software in which I could use the same data files under each OS: I need to avoid investing time into installing and learning software where my data is limited to running it under Linux only (or having to modify the data for it to be used when I'm back in the Windows). My only experience so far with seamless integration of data & multi-OS functionality has been with Firefox, the files it saves load up and look the same way whether I use Firefox in Linux or Firefox in Windows to save them ( (but then... it does not edit them, so it is a different situation) Does Audacity, which is available for both Windows and Linux, save the files it edits the same way in each OS? And what about Gnumeric? Which other fairly common programs of daily use, will save edited data the same way in Linux (without resorting to Wine), and in Windows?
Almost all of the file formats can be directly opened , viewed , edited , & saved in linux programs. As a general principle , an mp3 is an mp3 , a png is a png. The issue arises sometimes in proprietary formats such as M$ 's doc , docx , and Adobe's pdf , & psd. . Take heart : theree are free (& open source) program software packages for everything : antivirus (just in case) ClamTK Office Documents LibreOffice audio Audacity music Audacious ( almost like Foobar2000) dJ MIXXX movie playback VLC video conversion Handbrake burn CD , DVD Brasero , K3B images GIMP & Inkscape plain text VIM , emacs , gedit , kate ,,, etc etc etc note sometimes issues with MS / DOS linefead / carriage return pdf / epub Calibre Desktop Publishing Scribus CAD FreeCAD 3D 'art' Blender http ://www FireFox , Chromium torr ents torrential , deluge html , css , js Eclipse , Aptana Studio , Geany , Quanta Plus , BlueFish , & of course a plain text editor ! .. Most of these free (& open Source) programs are also available on the Wind side of the world too.