I have to tend to several computers (with fairly generic hardware) with SUSE on them at work, and they’re all a mess. I had to reinstall CUPS to get it to work, the task bar keeps disappearing and has to be killed/restarted to get it back, GIMP and sound never worked on 10.2, and yesterday the software manager would crash whenever I tried to add any online repository. Not sure if the 10.2/10.3 versions are just particularly screwed up, I’m just unlucky enough to have problems across several (4) different computers or if the OS just inherintly sucks, but I wouldn’t strongly recommend against it.
I have Ubuntu on two desktops at home and its been pretty flawless, I’m tempted to put it on my gf’s computer next time she upgrades, as it really does seem to be ready for primetime even for people who aren’t computer savy.
This used to be true, but concerted efforts on the part of both Linux developers and Microsoft have reversed the trend. Ubuntu especially gives headache-free usage.
I installed Puppy on a number of quite old laptops and it ran surprisingly well. The version I installed didn’t impose any kind of login process though - it just booted straight into the desktop - a bit like Win98.