LinuxQuestions.org - "That Linux Program"

A guy at work was thinking about getting DSL for his laptop. He's had really bad experiences with viruses, spyware, and porn. The laptop was brand new, and he didn't want to mess it up. I told him how to secure Windows (as much as you can, anyway) but since there was still a "small chance" that he could get one of the above, he wouldn't hear it. He later asked me if there was a way to have DSL on his laptop, and have no risk whatsoever of getting the above. I, being the geek that I am, said that the only way is to install Linux. I told him as much as I could (being in a work environment, and trying to work myself). He thought about it for a few days. He ended up bringing his laptop to work just dying to try out Linux. He must have done more research on it, I dunno. All I know is that he was just dying to try it out and was excited. My awesome boss had a SUSE DVD (another Linux fan ;)), so I borrowed it from him. The first thing my friend noticed was that the programs were installing very rapidly. That alone was enough to amaze him. After watching the programs install for a few minutes, he put his hand down to where the fan is to see how fast it was spinning. It was spinning slower then it does from just being in Windows. Those two things literally made him flip. Once the installation was over, he sat there for a few seconds looking at KDE. Almost like he didn't know what to think. I showed him around a little bit. He was amazed about all the options it had, and how many programs it came with (I installed everything that came with SUSE, he'll be occupied for a while). He also liked how easy it was to customize the OS. But wait, it doesn't end here. He popped in a CD (it happened to be some annoying civil war music, he's big on that) and listened to it for a little while. I had heard the CD 10,000x working with him, so I could notice a major difference in the sound quality. I didn't point it out in case it was just me. Turns out - it wasn't just me. He noticed it to, and once again, was amazed. Then came the DVD test. I explained to him why DVD's don't work out of the box, and how to get them to work. Since he doesn't have internet yet, he asked me to download and burn them to a CD for him. I gladly did it. For some reason, Xine didn't, and still doesn't work correctly. It's very choppy (yep, I set the DMA). He didn't care much about that because he could still watch DVD's in Windows (though, he would have prefered to do it in Linux). I'm still working this one out. I may end up just installing MPlayer for him.

Glad that he could become one of us. He's very happy with Linux and says that he will always have a Linux partition / computer.

BTW - he calls it "That Linux Program." ;)