Lindows sucks. It's made by the same guy that created MP3.com and is a shameless self-promoter.
If you want to try out linux use Mandrake or Fedora. You can download ISO's free from the internet and with mandrake or redhat you can buy it for very reasonable prices and get extra support for installation and windows compatability software that is unavaible thru normal versions.
Minimal requirements for most everything is the same as windows. For a full fledged desktop your going to need a 1ghz and 256 megs of ram. For a simple file server 64megs of ram and a 200-300 mhz proccessor is great.
You can run it on anything from a 486 to a IBM mainframe, but 486 is going to be SLOW. For a positive experiance 800mhz and 256megs is ideal. More memory is better then more CPU if you have make a choice on a budget. Bare minimum for a "usable" desktop enviroment is going to be around a 400mhz era computer, you can cut away a lot to make it run fine on a much slower computer, but it's not something most people can deal with right away.
Most distros can read NTFS just fine, however making/moving/copying files isn't well supported and is turned off by default.
All the drivers you usually need are included with the default installs. Older hardware is better because it would have a longer time to get supported. Troublespots are with nforce boards (drivers from nvidia.com
nforce = nforce 1 and 2), ATI video cards(3-d acceleration only), wifi stuff, and laptops in general.
Hardware is hard for linux sometimes because most manufacturers don't care how well their stuff works as long as it works with windows. The open source nature means that the amount of public discloser isn't something manufacturers like a whole lot.
Some laptops are much better supported then others. IBM laptops are generally ok, most laptops will have 90% work right off of the bat, but may have annoying issues with the networking or X won't work correctly.
Check out
http://www.linux-laptop.net/ for details on specific models.
I like linux because it's secure, free, Free(different ways), and generally interesting to use. Windows is boring and their isn't realy a whole lot you can do with it. With linux the sky is the limit and their are no built in limitations like maximum amount of connections or cut down server versions.
Something at least worth checking out.