Desktop market: The desktop market is seemingly more organized than the notebook market. The major hardware manufacturers such as Intel, Nvidia, AMD, and ATI have their drivers (although proprietary) available for Linux, and installating and configuring the desktop is not an issue 99% of the time. The only problem you may face with the installation is the newest hardware may not have drivers available yet.
What I said about the laptop market is valid also for the desktop market. If you do not use very specific programs to carry out your work, then basically you have less of an excuse for using Windows. Everything is set up with your Linux installation and the only thing that you need is to go through the very intuitive menu structure and spot the programs that you basically need to use for your daily routine. Some of the programs have migration options from Windows (such as Firefox importing all your data from Internet Explorer and Thunderbird importing all your e-mails from Outlook Express) which makes you ready to go in a lesser amount of time.
Games: When people ask if they can play their favorite games under Linux, the answer is "it depends". It depends on whether you have Cedega/CrossOver installed and your game is supported. Both programs are basically software that map Windows calls (APIs) to Linux equivalents, thus enabling the games to think that they are running on Windows. They are not emulators but compatibility layers, let's say.
Cedega, as a company, focuses on only playing games under Linux and they have an extensive library of games found on their Games Database. The software is subscription-based with 6-month and 12-month options are. Many of the newest games are compatible, and you can replay those titles that you already have also. Meanwhile, CrossOver has both Standard and Professional versions, with different prices, of course. CrossOver also has CrossOver for Games, but personally I find Cedega to be more games oriented and CrossOver more general Windows software oriented.
As you will see, the power of Windows is diminishing day by day, even in some places which Microsoft believes they are strong. The "Games for Windows" label you see on the boxes are just there to make you think Windows is the only platform on which you can play games. The truth, as we see, is different.
