And my experiences have been all over the map. I have introduced a variety of people to Linux and Perl. Sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both. My experience is that I usually have the best result when I only change one thing at a time, unless they happen to not know anything very well in which case it works best to hand them a configuration that they have good local support for.

As for introducing people to Linux, my favorite is to show them Knoppix and go from there.

And about your "properly administrate" comment, well it seems that you are strutting around claiming to have the biggest private parts. When I see that, I just wish that the idiots involved would put their clothing back on...