Linked by Charles Williams on Wed 16th Apr 2003 04:11 UTC
In the previous article, our computer newbie family, Mike, Diane, Mary and Carla, had decided they wanted GNU/Linux installed on the new family/business computer. Debian, via Libranet 2.0, was installed on the system, with appropriate business/office software, as well as the Gnome desktop environment. The next steps involved getting the system configured for easy use and adding various minor tweaks. Mike, Diane and the kids were not involved during the configuration phase of the system. 
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This is a good article, and might I add, a good project. But it's not really a newbies meet linux article, it's an expert does everything for the newbies article.
I'd do a lot more with linux if I had a guru at my desk a couple hours a day showing me how to do things, informing me of patches that I didn't know existed, and setting things up for me while I was gone so I didn't have to do the work.
Linux will remain a hobby OS with regard to home machines as long as
(1) Users can't walk into Walmart and buy software for it
(2) There is no repository of information which shows the average user how to setup and fix things that are not working , i.e. not having to visit 10 different linux sites to find the answer
(3) There's more to installation than the initial installation process, i.e. "well you install this first, but then you need this patch and change this config file and ....."
Linux is great. It is improving with every new release of every distro. The community is great. Please keep focusing on improving the OS so that newbies can actually install, use , and maintain the system without the help of experts, then we'll really be getting somewhere.