The topic is Linux for the beginner. Not Linux for the server / performance geek / hacker. Performance and filesystem differences are not even on this guy's radar. edit: oops. just noticed it's a workstation with RAID. valid point If you want to introduce someone to using Linux, the easiest and safest way is still the ubuntu windows installer. I'm actually quite surprised you wouldn't bring up "loadfont not found". If you upgrade the distro you get your first Linux troubleshooting experience and need to edit a config file from a livecd to get into Ubuntu again. Other than that the Installer is quite nice.