http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthre...ram+equivalent http://www.linuxrsp.ru/win-lin-soft/table-eng.html
If you want a program not listed there then I'm sure you can ask and they will be happy to help. I don't know exactly where to get them (I intend to install linux when I get around to it, I already have the disk, I'm just lazy) but I think you can find available packages in Ubuntu and download them from there? Failing that if you know the name of the program google should work fine.
Forte: Linux, and 99% of the software for it, is LEGALLY FREE, rather than M$' approach of "grab as much money as you can". Because it is free there is no pressure on release dates for different
distros, so it isn't released until the programmers themselves are happy with it; this results in a much more stable operating system than, oh lets say Windows just as an example. It is much more customisable, and is
open source. If you know what you are doing you can do more in Linux that windows - many universities use Linux for more complicated things. I know Victoria university here is switching to it for mechatronics because windows was pissing them off.
For more information you could
read the wikipedia entry on it.