Yeah Linux is great, no doubt. I've been using Xubuntu since forever, never really touched Arch, but fundamentally if you know your way around one system, you'll manage another.
Still, there are a bunch of applications that I must run under Windows, so it's good to have the no frills version available for that.
Bought back by the one person who already had prior access, and bought by her own research non-profit. As far as privacy concerns go, that's the best case scenario.