I'm *still* waiting for my copy of SuSE 9.0 Pro to get here, so I'm playing around until it does. Anyway, I got a hold of a copy of Lindows 4.5, which I suppose is technically piracy, but I'm going to blow out Lindows for SuSE as soon as it comes through my door. So here goes my comments:
Install: I've never seen an install so brain-dead easy. As long as you haven't mistaken a Mac for a PC, no problem. A: Tell it where to install (whole hard drive, dual-boot, etc), B: Input "administrator" password, C: yawn.
Updating: This is easy, and free (I'd heard it wasn't free; not true). As soon as you establish an internet connection as root, click 'n run starts and updates the system. You can also apt-upgrade.
Click 'n run warehouse: Ok, this is the bad part. If you don't buy an account, you can only install a few little programs as a trial membership. But - one month's membership only costs $4.95. You can undoubtedly download everything you want in that amount of time (not including software like Star Office, which costs normally money anyway). Naturally, you could get another one-month membership a few months later, when they have more stuff that you want. In short, it's nowhere near as bad as I'd heard.
Other bad points: No free OS upgrade. Apt-get install is a pain because of broken packages. Definitely not a power-users Linux - if you've used Linux much, try something else.
Most importantly, when it's first installed, you're logged in as root, and they don't tell you that you need to create a regular user account (but if you know about that, just click user manager).
Good points: Incredibly easy, easy enough for someone who isn't even familiar with Windows or anything. Linux-stable. Really does have great hardware support like they advertize. If you're willing to spring for a 1-month membership, then it'll have as much software as any other Linux distro in a day or two with very little effort on the user's part, and that's still a hell of a lot cheaper than the equivalent software on Windows. Install it on as many computers as you want to, without needing separate licenses for each, like Windows.
Recommended? For Windows-users as well as people new to computers, yes. For those of us familiar with Linux, not really. They just really, really need to tell people to make a regular user account.
