MAME, MESS, ZiNc, Mednafen, Yabause, pSX, PCSX2, ZSNES, bsnes, Xe, DOSBox, Virtual Boy Advance, and NEStopia all run great on Linux. Those also happen to be the only emulators I use on Windows, so I think the coverage is pretty good.
Wine/Crossover are at the point now where more things work than don't: lots of folks play World of Warcraft, EVE Online, and the various Steam games (HL2, Portal, Counter Strike Source, Day of Defeat, etc) just fine on Linux nowadays, including online deathmatches. Stuff like Office and Photoshop just works too - heck, even MAME32 and most Windows frontends work fine.
That all said, here's a few indicators that you shouldn't use Linux:
- You have a working PC-based cabinet already
- You just want to save money
- You can't operate regular baseline MAME from a command prompt
- You can't fix common Windows problems yourself
- You're afraid to explore things like the Control Panel and see what they do
- You want to "stick it to the man". Aaron Giles is the man, and he resents that.
- You can't use Google to find solutions to problems
- You can't follow simple directions like those at
www.fedorafaq.org- You have unusual hardware in some way - ATI and Nvidia cards and Intel onboard video will work fine on modern Linux. Other stuff may not. On-board audio and SBLive and Audigy series soundcards are fine, the X-Fi is not. In general, if Vista supports your stuff Linux will too.
(I'm done, but feel free to add your own)