New Linux user training?

[Tuna]

Alan Dayley wrote:
> My father (actively retired and now at 70+ years old) has recently
> purchased a new Eee PC.  He really likes it!  He surprised me and did
> NOT order Windows XP to go with it.  I have been helping him with a few
> things.  It has been an interesting experience.
> 
> One evening we were confirming that his 8GB SD card was working
> properly.  He claimed it would not.  We discovered that the path to the
> card when inserted in the system was /media/SD_MMC (or something like
> that).  He wondered, of course, why it was not "drive D:"  And then he
> made a comment to this effect:
> 
> "Am I going to have to learn lots of new things with this.  Maybe I
> should just buy Windows for it since I already know that."
> 
> I am able to handle this situation.  I mean, it's my dad and I'll help
> him.  I am expanding this experience to a wider picture.  I'd like to
> hear about other experiences and ideas around new Linux user training.
> 
> What training resources have you seen work?
> 
> How can such training best be presented or used?
> 
> How have you overcome objections to learning or using Linux on the desktop?
> 
> And so on?
> 
> Alan
> 

When I came to Linux, I was actually quick to adapt to the different 
system of organization for everything. /media/whatever is WAY simpler 
than going through "My Computer" to figure out which letter corresponds 
to which item I have plugged in.

It's also easier for me to find things like config files for my 
programs. Ultimately, I have found Ubuntu to be infinitely simpler than 
Windows.

Especially Vista! Did they WANT to confuse people? I went to Best Buy 
and I can't find a damn thing on there! Finding "Notepad" in the Start 
menu is *easily* a two-minute ordeal.

My two lepta.