I have to disagree on some level.
well i agree with you, because all those people will try linux. they will fail at linux. they will then hate linux, and tell everyone that it is crap.
However, these people, who are employed as computer technicians and salesmen, have never even heard of Linux. Now they've seen an expert demonstrate some of its more impressive features and talk about why he loves it so dearly. I can certainly see how that could plants the seeds of interest, so to speak. Sure, they might try it at home. They might think it's neat. They might fail completely when it comes to installing and using Linux. However, since they've seen someone use it well they know that it is possible for Linux to be awesome, despite the fact that they themselves did not succeed.
Imagine if it happened a little differently. This guy did not demonstrate anything to those kids. Imagine that one of them was reading something on the web and it mentioned Ubuntu, or Fedora, or any other popular distro.
"Hey," he thinks to himself, "I wonder what all this hubbub is about." He downloads Ubuntu and boots the CD.
"Ooh, it's a desktop. It's orange. I can browse the internet using this Firefox thing. Now what? Gee this LiveCD thing is slow. Linux is slow. How do I install MSN? Why don't any games work?"
Because of this evangelist's actions, they were
impressed by Linux. That probably wouldn't have happened otherwise. The kids have seen that in the hands of an experienced user that they system flies and does all sorts of neat things that Windows doesn't do.
Sure, they might be soured by the experience, but at least now they know about it. They might also become interested and peruse it further, gaining necessary knowledge.
The fact that the techs seemed to think that competing with Microsoft was
illegal suggests that they have a lot to learn about the computer industry in general.
I agree that linux distros are not at the stage where they should be given to people who have never heard of linux as they won't be able to use it and get put off for life.
To get to the stage where anyone can use it immediately should be the aim of linux if it wants to significantly expand its user base though.
Windows isn't at this point either! The difference is that in many occasions Windows comes installed when Auntie Marge buys a computer. Windows is what computers look like and that's the end of it. Linux has to push beyond that and actually make the users install it for themselves. Most don't care about computers that much. Of the ones that do, only a subset have the technical skills necessary to research, download, burn, install, etc.
The ease-of-use of the usual Ubuntu installer versus the Windows XP installer is not even a fair contest. Ubuntu would win every time. Accommodating pre-existing Windows/Linux/other installations is where Linux installers get complicated. This is simply something the Windows installer doesn't do.
