New Penguin

I am cultivating a new penguin.  A friend asked me to help her install Linux on to her computer.  Why does she want to use it?  She's been interested for a little while, apparently.  She has a Dell Inspiron Mini (netbook) that normally runs Windows XP.  Her previous install of Windows XP was getting horribly slowed by cruft and a virus and Cisco software, the last of which was required to connect to our University's wireless network.  Linux machines don't require Cisco network access control software, and in theory could be safer.

Penguin By Kristin De More, Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0

My first instinct was to install Fedora, but apparently the Live USB image didn't load, so I went with Ubuntu using the WUBI installer.  (It runs from Windows and installs it.)  After that, I briefly showed her Unity, but being a GNOME contributor and a Fedora and GNOME Shell user, I asked to show her GNOME Shell, which she seemed to like quite a bit (it was more stable on her system) so she switched to that.
I find that enjoying GNOME and Linux often requires some philosophy.  Especially with GNOME 3.0.  There is intentionally much less customisation and less options than in other desktops, like Windows XP (what she was using before).  However, for myself, a "power user", that's not even a bad thing.  I don't really miss anything that's been since GNOME 2.x.  I used to heavily use launchers, but my need for those launchers has gone away.  I used to use panel applets, but I just don't need any panel applets now.  I don't even want them.  Let the operating system and desktop get out of the way of your work.

I like helping people.  It's my most rewarding activity.  When I contribute to Open Source, I feel like I'm helping more people than in other programming tasks.  I feel that new Linux users should generally be adopted by an existing one.  Linux can be scary when things go wrong, or when you're just unsure how to accomplish what you want.  It's wonderful to have someone you can ask questions to and clarifications from.  Someone you can trust who won't let their own biased opinions harm the new user's experience.  (e.g. by forcing GNOME 3.0 on a new user of Ubuntu- oh, oops!)

Anyway, so hooray, I get to help a new penguin!  I hope I don't leave them disappointed.