I agree with Eddie M, don't go to linux if you have windows. It's a pain when you want to install new software, Wine will emulate windows to allow windows software to run, however it is buggy and slow. In terms of stability the kernel is very stable, willl only really crash due to hardware faults. However X (the graphical bit!) does occasionally crash, this can be restarted without a reboot though.
i use unix and linux quite a bit at work, generally the advise that I give is if you need to ask the linux question then don't go for it!, it's not as easy to use as windows, installing non Flavoured programs can be tricky etc.
Unix and linux correctly set up generally will only be rebooted after major updates, the last place I work had only had to reboot the unix server once in four years.