How to Make People Love Linux

Good points in this article - being arrogant about your OS is not going to convince anyone. The indirect method is so much more effective...

...that's how I was converted to Linux. I resisted for some time, but, every time I visited a colleagues office, he'd show me something else you could do in Linux, including Compiz. I was really amazed, especially when he told me about package repositories.

I dipped a toe in, and loved it. My Windows machines was jammed full of odd software and was rather slow - the sleekness of the Linux dist was so compelling.

Then I used LaTeX to write a document - and I never looked back.

I did the same for my girlfriend last night... I wrote a letter for her in LaTeX and she cooed over how elegant it looked.

Fix theira computers spyware problem? ha! you have alot of time on your hands.
they're already behind the times... (stupid and lazy)
git with it.

how many people eat unhealthy food? use inferior products, have fewer ideas. smoke packs and packs of useless leaves, cling to dead ideas, refuse change pr renewal.

Its not linux, its humanity. humanity is so mediocer that when some idea or product is really good, it will absolutly not become standard. protectionism strangles our possible discoveries and creations.

frack this world, make your own, and dont invite THEM.

i too have stopped helping people with windoze problem..
it is still a tough choice though..some of them really hate me for that(for being a dick ;-) )..
But I have started 2 think its immoral to help people 2 further sink themselves in the world of restrictions and taking away their freedom(tough they may be unaware of what freedoms they lost)
By restricting advice and support to free software in friendly neighborhoods..
it may lead them to two paths:
1) They will learn how pain it is to deal with all the virus,spyware and restrictions..and eventually make a switch to gnu/linux
or
2) they learn to fix blue screens of death by their own by reading ..
enlightening registry editing articles to the path of being "power users"

you've written exactly what i had in my mind.

I've just spent the better part of 3-4 hours trying to fully resurrect a windowsXP machine (circa 2002) that would not boot; it is now booting but the users accounts are all unconfigurable and the admin account appears to be garbled and refuses to show up. To make the fun even all the more consuming, when a user logs in, a box appears, telling that user that an error has occurred and windows will reboot in 60seconds. If the user ignores this and works away anyway, the box disappears, and windows just carries on as though nothing happened. I've told them where I think the problem lies (the registry is bound to be a mess (isn't it always??), and only very old user accounts seem to be stable) and that without the admin acct, my hands are tied (I feel that the best resolution would be a complete reinstall- a review of the sam under linux tells me that all accounts are admin, but under windows, they are all limited accts). Telling the owners the above makes me feel somewhat inadequate at resolving computer problems despite my abilities in Linux and despite getting it to the stage of actually booting without reinstall (most repair Coys would not go that far), and I wonder if they are more interested in blaming me rather than the windows OS. In other words and for them, windows cannot be the problem, because they just do not know any better ie technologically illiterate.

And it's a great feeling to know that I am not alone. I help people with any kind of PC problem, including Windows problems. I often joke that I provide tech support for family and friends. I recognize that I don't give best "tech support", but for friends and family who are less technically-inclined I am the best they could get. And for free (as in beer). It's just the way I am.

You hit it right on the mark, Shawn :-)