Dunno about that, really. I don't find Vista to be very CPU-draining, and x4500HD is (more than!) enough for running Aero pleasantly. The only thing a bit on the low end is the RAM, but that isn't a problem either - I'd even say it's a non-issue for people who aren't going to run anything heavy. I do appreciate 2GB in my laptop, but then again that's used for Eclipse, VS2008, SQL Server 2005 et cetera - a bit more than casual web browsing and some text editing 
-f0dder
Yes, but then you're starting to define the user now rather than optimize it for the user.
Navigating folder hierarchy, opening text files, and using filemanager "find in files" to look for a topic is easier than HtmlHelp? O_o
As for RTFM, that's really not something I'd expect being helpful for newbie on linux. The documentation there is often pretty bad, and definitely written with power users programmers in mind.
Yes, it is actually. I find the right folder hierarchy is much easier for a new OS user to grasp than oh ok, tree-lines, small fonts, possible bad documentation that goes on and on, constant searches. It's like a test of willingness to grasp an OS and even though Linux's documentation is bad, if you've got a newbie that's willing to go through hell, than they can still gleam something from it.
That's the problem though. They don't. They just want to find stuff. At their pace and at their time. That's why find in files doesn't matter. It's like a real world book. The average person doesn't highlight books, they read books.
All you really need is a good fast basic finder like Everything (if you're on Windows) and that's it. Even better if they can quickly grasp the concept of launchers like FARR/Launchy/Gnome Do + RocketDock or whatever dock is used. (Gnome has a cool drawer panel applet though and Tomboy is good for Table of Contents)
Here's an example:
I have in my desktop a folder called Weekly Review and underneath it a folder called Personal Information Manager of Text and underneath it a folder called Tweaks and underneath it a folder called Browser and there contains titles/headers of instructions I found over the internet.
Seems like a lot of click for a power user but to me it isn't. Why? Terminology may be iffy but it works for me because I often don't use help files to read stuff. I often am in a help file to find a snippet of well...help. That's what most newbie users often use help for anyways. Anything more complicated...hello irc or forums and just ask.
1) if you need to run windows programs on linux, you have failed and might as well run windows.
2) newbies won't be installing the OS themselves.
3) limited user account on XP or Vista (with UAC love), windows' own firewall enabled, and "virus what me worry?". If tomos adds a free AV and firefox w/adblockplus to the mix, even better.
Yeah sure, linux has come a long way and the recent distros are relatively friendly, as long as you only need to do bog-standard stuff. I wager that, knowing their needs, I could put my mother or grandmother on linux - partially because they don't need much stuff, and more importantly because I'm familiar enough with linux to troubleshoot. But I'd still go for Windows, because it's less hassle and there's a lot more people with windows experience to help out.
Considering that tomos says he doesn't have linux experience at all, I'd say the choice is a no-brainer.
No. What he said was he fears he might get called. Do you really expect any newbie to not call him anyways when Windows start running slow because they failed to keep updating their antiviruses?
If you need to run applications on windows, it doesn't mean you don't also run applications on Linux. That's just flawed thinking for a power user to assume that of a newbie. Some of the user-friendliest free applications are easier to set up on Linux as long as a person doesn't have a pre-defined expectation from an old Windows way of working.
For ex.
Tomboy is still the most user friendly wiki for a casual user.
BasKet Notepads, among the most user friendly mindmapping outliners for any OS.
PCMan File Manger, one of the most casual file managers for any casual user who just wants to browse folders.
Newbies might not install the OS themselves but I guarantee you, they will be calling you lots of times when Windows get hit bad with viruses. Linux is also bad there but that's why I prefer Mint. Because of it's original problem of having to disable updates in Celena because users using Cassandra updated badly, they have an improved upgrade manager that's more user friendly than even Windows Updates to a newbie user.
Also it's just bad pedagogy to not teach a person how to reformat because they will constantly call you back on it. In Windows, it's easy but in Linux, it's really easy.
As for what to worry? How about not regularly updating antiviruses? How about using IE? How about a failed Windows updates again? How about not having a separate user folder? How about not having a LiveCD?
Linux might not be perfect but it has beat Windows on many things. Oh and if you're going to annoy a newbie with LUA, won't it be better to introduce them to Linux's sudo anyways? It's basically the same manner of learning anyway except in the future newbies would less likely find ways to disable LUA out of frustration.
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