Why does Linux always go wrong when you're showing it to a skeptic? It just knows, it does it on purpose.

That Thinkpad I posted about the other day, I spent ages making a nice minimalistic GNOME desktop on that so that it could be used for Web, email and word processing and it was all working fine the last time I booted it up before taking back to its owner.

But as soon as I got it round to my friend's house and plugged it in, it messed up when loading the desktop. Grrr. It makes him think, "I was right, this Linux thing is pants."

Turned out that re-installing the gnome-applets package fixed the problem. But I still haven't managed fully to convert my skeptical friend. "But Windows XP works", he argues! Blargh!