I find the best way to get people using Linux is to let them see the worst of Microsoft Windows, Really. I dont know of its the right way but it works, 2 of my friends that they used windows to do every thing both had virus scanners (both norton i think) but nether of the virus scanners worked (one for almost 3 months) because of viruses. the first guy's computer was heavily used and crashed often (once an hour) and he was tired of it. He needed something that looked like windows but worked. Suse Linux did it for him!The best analogy I have found for Linux is religion & spirtuality. Before I cntinue let me define my terms here. To me religion is the instruction and training you recieve as part of the "belief system" you are a part of. Spirituality is the application of the knowledge that you have learned.
That being said the sharing of the FLOSS/Linux "belief system" is akin to evangelizing. Whether converting to a religion or converting to Linux the premise is the same. Each person will have different needs and desires that need to be filled before they will consider or accepts your beliefs. Also, each person's "religiousexperience" will be individual as well. When that person has met God/Tux on a level that adequately meets their needs (with some growth taken into account), they will experience a "conversion". They will have burps and bumps along the way, but it is the journey and not the destination that is important.
Kind of bizarre anology I know but I hope it helps you understand my thoughts patterns when I approach "evangelizing" Linux.
The other friend, well his computer had 89 viruses, Trojans, worms. It was a 2.6Ghz celeron with 512MB memory and it ran slower than my brothers 600Mhz with 64MB memory! It had norton but it didn't work because of one of the viruses. Visiting http://www.google.com gave enough pop ups to crash the computer.
Origenaly when I went to his house it was just to clean what I thought was a few viruses, like 20 max. I made him a deal if i fix his computer for free I can install Linux so I did! It was fedora core due to some time constraints and needing the DVD player to work right away. I was suppose to setup they're printer to with Linux but well, um I kina forgot. BUT I did leave them one of my Linux books (Linux for dummies). In the end his mom really needed the printer to work but saved her work in Linux so she had to install the printer (cue the sound affect "Dududuu"). She plugged it in and it worked! She felt so special and smart! Even though it would have worked the same in windows she loves linux. He still likes windows so he can use p2p aps (can you guess where most of the viruses came from?) I put his account to a user account so most of the viruses do less damage (all it takes is a lil .dll files to let some users cause administrative damage) He phones me a sometimes telling me that something didn't work so he made his account a admin account and messed his system up.
Also there is my brother, total computer newb so I didn't convert him really I more started him with linux he now hates using windows because things just stop working or windows gives errors for programs and kills them.
Travis R.
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