I'm going to be installing Ubuntu on my Windows box soon, and I heard that bitcoin runs on Linux too. I have the wallet.dat on a USB stick ready to be moved over already. I was wondering if I should do the same with the blockchain: will it still work on a new OS, and is it worth the trouble?
Assuming that you are using the vanilla client, the OS doesn't really affect the blockchain database format so long as the file is named correctly and in the correct folder. But unless you have some real bandwidth issues, it's probably not worth the risk or the trouble.