I'm on a Mac, and installing Free Pascal with the Lazarus integrated development environment (IDE) wasn't easy, and really not very automated once installed. It uses GTK+, which has to be installed using Fink. Then three additional files have to be installed (two for Lazarus, and one for the Free Pascal compiler). Lazarus is a X11 application (X11 is equivalent to X on Linux).
I guess this is often the disadvantage of using open source software. It is somewhat more difficult to install, and the user experience is less well defined as with commercial and free software. Designing programs and designing user interfaces are two separate disciplines, few people have mastered both.
I haven't really looked into this, but the Learn Pascal Tutorial by Taoyue.com seems to be a descent introduction into the Pascal Language. Because Pascal is a compiler language, developing small programs is somewhat less comfortable than with an interactive mode, as some of the more modern languages have baked into them. Nevertheless, Pascal is the descendant of Algol, and the forerunner of a plethora of C type languages (e.g. C, C++, Objective-C, C#, etc.).
Should I mention that Free Pascal is compatible to Borland's Delphi? There was the original Pascal by Dr. Niklaus Wirth, Turbo Pascal by Borland Inc., Modula-2 (also by Wirth), and Delphi (by Borland). With both Free Pascal and Delphi it is possible to write GUI driven programs, and both compile lightning fast.
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