Being a Windows guru can be more hindrance than help. Linuxland is a
different country than Gatesistan, with a different culture and a
different language. What your friend might know about Windows won't
apply to much of anything. In Linuxland, he'll be just another newb.
That's not the fault of him or Linux; it's just the way it is.
There's nothing wrong with Ubuntu, it just didn't meet his expectations.
If he wants something that acts more like Windows than Ubuntu, he's
probably going to be disappointed. There are distributions that attempt
to *be* Windows (Linspire and Xandros come immediately to mind); maybe
one of those would be more to his liking.
If he wants a Windows-like GUI, but in a distro that isn't trying to
*be* Windows, I still recommend Simply MEPIS 3.4-3. When you get to the
partitioning part of the install, be sure to chose the custom/advanced
mode, and make 100% sure you point the install to the correct partition.
Additionally, when prompted, make sure you allow MEPIS to install GrUB
to the MBR on the boot partition -- presumably hda1 (hd0,0).
Unfortunately, doing any of this with any distro on a dialup account is
going to be frustrating, if not impossible. Check out the services on
http://www.linuxcd.org ; at least there you can get the install disks
for peanuts. Even if you get the base install disk, most distros will
prefer a fast connection to get packages and updates. And Linux still
has problems with a lot of internal modems ("winmodems") -- that's the
fault of the modem makers not making Linux compatible drivers, not the
fault of Linux. An external serial or usb modem is the way to go.
Linux is Not Windows:
http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm
