Kicking Linux's Tires

I don't understand what you are looking for, but maybe you don't know, either. Are you just hoping someone will come up with a great story idea for you? If the question was a bit more focused, maybe I could suggest something.

I assume from what you say that the story will not focus on the ethical reasons to choose Linux. Your reader would be either too doltish to understand or in thrall to the MS hegemony(rational analysis of Windows licensing has driven away anyone else). So, you need applications. Or maybe a dissection of internal Linux squabbles so they can feel good about staying with Windows.

Did you actually read the article? The notion of a request for ways to test Linux is just a guise. The article is actually comprised a few suggestions for ways users can test Linux, a mention of one of the author's favorite apps and a request for readers to post favorite apps so that others can benefit from their suggestions.

I find many Windows users struggle to even download, burn, and boot a liveCD, so this can be an area of focus. For instance give some links to ftp sites or show how to participate in torrent swarms. Teach, with screenshots, how to burn ISOs in Nero and Roxio. Lastly, some instructions on invoking the boot menu in popular PCs (Dell, HP) would be relevant.

Most liveCDs today -- Mepis, Knoppix, Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, Slax -- work great, even on laptops, and are the perfect showpiece for Linux tech.

I might be inclined to base a series of articles on the many cool things that can be done in conjunction with a Windows install -- set-up a persistant home, file rescue, captive NTFS, safe partitioning, Klik installs, remastering, kiosk web browsing ... the list goes on.

I'm not certain Linux will ever completely replace Windows for everyone, as much as it has for me, but they can certainly coexist on the same machine and this could be the theme of your articles.