Want to install ubuntu but have technical concerns -

I suggest you just make a live Ubuntu USB stick so you can try it out and see how it operates on your system before installing or making changes.

It will most likely run better than Windows 7, but you must know that performance is greatly reduced whe you are running from USB or DVD. You could also try out various software while testing live, without doing any changes to your existing system.

Well, I must have been doing something wrong because I had slight difficulty attempting to test when I had it running on the side-by-side style.

I do have it burned to a disc and have already attempted a live trial, but must not have done enough. I'm still looking for if anyone actually knows about them while I give it another shot.

Thank you Mikal!

Dropbox offers a linux version, so you should have no problems there.

However Office 2010, Express scribe and text expander do not. You would need to either run these programs under wine, or use replacement software, like libreoffice to replace office 2010, as the wine version runs poorly.

According to the wine DB, express scribe works:
http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=3512

However i could not locate an entry for text expander -- you might be able to use alternate software like autokey:
http://screenshots.debian.net/screenshots/a/autokey-qt/7348_large.png

The specific text expander I use is called PhraseExpress and it works in a lot of various programs and throughout various platforms including web related so I'm willing to bet it would be at least compatible.

Sadly, I do not think I can lower to anything less than Office for my documentation needs for work due to compatibility issues across the board. I do medical transcription and Word is a standard for all of us. Wine then might be the answer no matter how poorly it may run if that happens to be the way to go.

I'm going to leave this open a bit longer to see if there are any other potential solutions that come in.

Thank you mycae!

Text expander functionality can be implemented in openoffice with autoreplace. It even does it in MS office so I'm confused why you even need it.

Ubuntu comes with Libreoffice which is a cracking suite of office apps. The foot pedal my not work due to support. You could contact the makers to see if they support Linux.

The reason I use my expander is because Word (or alternate versions thereof) are very limited in their capabilities and the expander allows me to create thousands of custom made expansions based upon my doctor's repetitive phrases, etc. I utilize it for hundreds of thousands of medical terminology, doctors names, hospitals, and clinics as well as the repetitive phrases from my doctors not to mention the inclusion of the auto correct features that are so popular in Word. It also allows me to do oh so much more than any standard program features and their website entertains those features (http://www.phraseexpress.com/).

The foot pedal actually connects to ExpressScribe and not the document processing programs so if that is compatible to Linux then it (the foot pedal) should be okay.

I think I'm rationalizing myself into it more and more providing I can get everything transferred over and started up within a reasonable amount of time. I can't afford massive delays trying to get those base programs/utilities up and running or else my work suffers greatly (not to mention my paychecks!).

Thank you actionparsnip!

Set up a dual boot system. That way, if you really need to boot Windows to get some work done you can do so. You can then boot Ubuntu to work on migrating your applications and functionality. Many of us did it this way until we found we no longer needed to boot Windows as all, and were much happier with the speed and reliability of Ubuntu. Once you get to that point you can safely remove Windows from your machine and give all the disk space over to you Ubuntu /home partition.

Before undertaking this be aware that you really must do backups of all your important data. While re-sizing partitions and adding more (for Ubuntu) should work fine, a power failure or something unforeseen can jeapardise all your work if you don't have it backed up.

You could also try a Wubi install, which is a virtual Ubuntu installation that lives in it's own file on the Windows hard drive. I don't recommend this method except as a means of testing for a brief period of time, but it does let you try Ubuntu without making any changes to the partition table - it's the least intrusive method of getting the true Ubuntu experience. Just boot windows and insert the LiveCD. The autorun on the LiveCD will start and ask you if you want to do a Wubi intall. Removing it when you are done is simply a matter of booting Windows again and using add/remove programs to delete the Wubi install.

Chris