I you are taliking about word editing you can do that in a program called Libreoffice. If you have ever used Openoffice it is very similar, and you can earn your master's degree online because anything that works in your web browser in windows will work in Linux. Libreoffice can aslo save in Microsoft Word format so that your teachers do not have to know you are not using Microsoft Word.
Microsoft Word is a word processor. Linux is a family of operating systems.
None what-so-ever. Halo was developed with Microsoft. So Linux will not work with it.
No. It wouldn't have any use even if it did.
Yes, if installed using Wine.
The Linux kernel and the many off-shoot operating system distributions (Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and so on) are classed as open source and have nothing to do with Microsoft.
Microsoft Connect
NO
Microsoft has never stated specifically how many patents Linux violates, or even a single example.
Microsoft and Linux have no direct relationship. Microsoft has frequently attacked the reliability and cost effectiveness of Linux in order to promote their own Windows Server products. They do not release any software for Linux directly, but have made several "deals" with various commercial Linux vendors, such as Novell, Xandros, and Linspire, to license Windows media codecs.
Linux already is a serious competitor to Windows, especially in markets outside of the desktop. Linux fully dominates over Windows on servers, mobile, routers, embedded, and supercomputing markets. Some are even believing Linux is fast becoming the industry standard operating system in these markets because of how readily it can be made to work. On the desktop, Linux is alsoa threat to Windows market share, by Microsoft's own admission. Look up the Halloween Documents, which are a series of leaked memos by someone high up in Microsoft addressing Linux as Microsoft's largest credible threat.
Financial resources.