@GrahamsTenPenneth
It's been a couple of years since I last had Mint running on my desktop machine (wanted to see if it was worth ditching the pre-installed Vista). Has Linux (any distro) got to the point that plugging in, say, a camera or MP3 player, will prompt the system to find its own drivers and then let you browse around whatever you've just plugged in? It took me quite an effort to get even the most basic functionality from my Zen when plugged in to Mint (it was about the same when plugged into my Win2k laptop), which put me off recommending Linux to anyone else (I'd like to put my dad on it, as it's just too easy for him to riddle his Vista desktop with endless malware), but I just can't do it (endless phonecalls would ensue).
I've currently got Puppy running on an old laptop, and something as simple as disabling the lid close/sleep button eludes me still. If an enthusiastic amateur like myself can't get off Windows, what hope the general population?