Does linux have a gui like windows or is it all command line?

If I put it on my laptop, can linux run windows programs... or do I have to get linux programs to replace all my windows programs? (email, broswer, word, paint, etc)

Linux does have a gui like windows.
You only have to use the command line if you want to.
Linux cannot run windows programs unless you install a windows emulator like WINE, and Wine cannot run all windows programs. Linux does have programs to do all the things you mentioned.

The first problem people run into when trying to install windows is that some piece of hardware is either not supported by linux or a particular configuration file need to be installed to get the hardware to work, and for a newbie that could be a problem.
You can download and burn what is called a livcd of linux to a cd and run that on your computer. You can tell it to run linux from the cd and nothing will be changed on your computer. It will run a little slowly because it is running from the cd but you will be able to see if all your hardware is immediately linux compatible.

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Wow, very cool. I'll try the livecd route to linux so I can learn a bit more about it.

Thank you!