Brief Encounter with a penguin

Having fixed my 2002 Toshiba Satellite laptop by putting in a new hard drive I thought I'd install Linux on it. I bought a magazine with a Kubuntu installation disk at the supermarket (of all places) and started. Installation was a success, but I must admit I gave up on Linux within 30 minutes. The laptop is currently formatting the disk to NTFS for a fresh Windows XP installation.

The quick startup of the KDE desktop felt nice and I felt like a tech-geek with something other than Windows or Mac on my screen. Bill Gates eat yer heart out. However my geek-chicness soon turned into a feeling of being a complete newbie idiot. I could barely find my files and didn't understand 80% of the questions Kubuntu threw at me when I double-clicked something. Frustration set in quickly as I am an impatient gal at heart and I just wanted the laptop to be a download machine dammit.

Feeling so lost in the interface I thought it was good to realize that this is probably how people like my mother feel when confronted with the Windows interface (which is so familiar to me that I can hardly imagine someone not understanding it). Not knowing where things are makes one feel very insecure! I have better things to do with my time than diving headfirst into terminal windows and typing gobbledegook. Why does Linux have to be so complicated? Make a simple version for people like me. Dammit, I thought I was relatively technical, for a girl (hehe... just kidding)... but I think my main problem is PATIENCE (lack of it). Sorry little Penguin.