Welcoming Newcomers to Linux and FOSS, or, the Least You Can Do is Not Chase Noobs Away

The Linux/Free/Open Source world is changing, and such is the price of coming closer to "world domination." The more people turn to FOSS, the more diverse the user- and developer-base is going to be.

This, like all great grassroots movements, mixes the bitter with the sweet. It's like when the Wrong People discover your favorite great, but not well-known, band. Suddenly all of these uninformed trendwits are listening to it, clogging their shows, talking at all the wrong times, saying all the wrong things, and dancing when they should be listening reverently.

Or, it's like when the black monkeys gang up on the brown monkey- it's different! It's wrong! It's a threat! It doesn't have a geekbeard or parrot the correct buzzphrases! Beat it with sticks!

More Points of Entry = More Better

Get a grip, ya crabpots. The more points of entry, the better. Beginners need a lot of handholding. Remember your beginning days? Perhaps they were brutish and painful. So why make it a tradition? Unless your real goal is keep out "The Wrong People." So start a noob out with Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice on Windows. Fix them up with a nice PC already running Linux- expecting new users to install Linux is an unnecessary hurdle, though it is easier than ever, and easier and faster than installing Windows. Help them with migrating their data- that's the biggest hurdle to Linux adoption.

Do please refrain from going all ballistic over specialized Linux User Groups. Groups created by and for women attract all the resident screaming meemees who just can't understand why us girls don't want to hang out with their unpleasant selves. There are faith-oriented LUGs, LUGs devoted to particular distributions, noob-friendly LUGs, advanced-user LUGs, coder LUGs, sysadmin LUGs- these all attract and support different users, and add to the overall strength and richness of the FOSS world.

Training wheels are good. Expecting someone who is new to Linux to instantly overhaul their entire computing infrastructure and personal philosophy is beyond unrealistic- it's delusional, not to mention counter-productive. One step at a time works very well, and is preferable to alienating new users, and possibly chasing them away forever. Bitching and preaching at people definitely does not work, and only hardens their opposition. Try something truly radical, something that is even more radical than FOSS itself- try listening to Linux noobs, and understanding what their real computing needs are. They know better than even the finest, most brainest FOSS geeks what their needs are.

Huzzah to the Good Guys