Fedora

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/FourkBSectorBooting

Redhat 6 boot not supported

https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html/Storage_Administration_Guide/newstorage-iolimits.html

General Info

http://excess.org/article/2010/11/wd-hdd-lying-about-4k-sectors/

I am afraid which Wine you referring.

As I know wine wine is software that runs on Linux(say Ubuntu) to run some windows applications.

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=328

But I am not sure how much good its features work well in linux flavours. Mainly when taking reports

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=328

Before installing Linux make sure your required application support linux. There is no problem in running C , C++ or java on linux.

May be the same software wont be available but their would opensource software tool that function same as CAD etc..

If u never been into linux it might be good to start installing linux on virtual machine (u can install oracle virtualbox) and trying testing all your applications before you switch you machine to linux/dual booting.

As mentioned on previous post installing virtual box on windows and installing linux as guest OS into the virtual machine is good option.

you can download virtual box from below link. Previous it was sun product and now its oracle product :-)

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/virtualbox/downloads/index.html

Installing virtual box is simple. For installing guest OS (linux ) you can check google :-)

if u hve any question post here.

Once windows reinstalled , Check reinstall ubuntu bootloader so you would have linux boot loader in MBR

Mint is also an option
http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

Hope this helps

1) Source code will be available . Tomorrow if you wish you can edit and make you own package or Operating system. all linux os comes different company (LIndows , Lycoris, Red Hat, SuSe, Mandrake, Knopping, Slackware).all windows version comes from Microsoft :-)

2) Have more options to secure the system. If you are good admin you can perfectly make it secure.

3) Linux architecture make it more secure. Where windows all in managed by registry. as i said above point security is based on admin who manage OS.

why windows get affected always ? simple 90% of desktop users use windows. So there people to exploit this. they will install all applications :-) and open himself into security risk.

4) save money . for windows u need to pay for OS then for support (support cost u high)

5)stable. windows need many reboot as part of each application or updates. Many of my linux servers still up running for 2 yrs :-). As far there is no hardware problem linux run's perfect.

6)migration simple - since all considered as files - just copy and paste make things work.

Mint + xfce is a good choice.

http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

and

http://www.xfce.org/download

try this

1) # pgrep crond
2)if not running
check /etc/init.d/ for crond daemon
then try to start it
#/etc/init.d/crond start

CIFS runs over TCP/IP but uses the SMB protocol . This is supported both on linux and windows.
this helps to share data vise versa.

In linux you need to install Samba that helps CIFS to run.

SMB share point can be mounted in different ways based on the way its setup on the server