I gave her a quick demo of Ubuntu on an old laptop and I was impressed how quickly she caught on that these were the same basic programs but with a slightly different interface.

There is a class of user who just wants access to basic “services” such as email, web and mp3 playback for whom desktop Linux is very well suited. Ironically, it’s the slightly more adventurous and tech-savy people who are going to run into problems. The strata above them is occupied by the expert geeks who can fight their way to Linux supremacy.

I might even try to generate an article out of the whole adventure.

For people who don’t need that though - the ones just using it for internet and the occasional word processor document or IM - it seems like it will work very well.