theres some relation, but those are still not the same.
a first taste is kinda important to get anyone on the board. ppl could live without a bunch of goodies for many years that no1 showed them before they find them accidentally. lazy ppl will live with what they have, enthusiasts/geeks will discover their stuffs anyway, but for both, imho no matter what they have, the 1st wont discover much, the latter will do the homework. probably the 1st will beg u instead of live with the thumb rule of “stfw”, and thats hopeless as well. that way ppl could shape their silicon with bare hands and start their cyber life by installing gentoo from some printed howto, thats written up to the browsing ability. for sure, its really important to learn stuffs around, fixing a bleeding system and installing a gentoo are very much enlightening, but learning on a working machine is much better than groping in the dark. on the next session they can discover that tech, they have all the ease for making studies together online utilizing all the goodies that have beens set up properly instead of waste an afternoon by trying to make themselves able to do whatever they wanted to do so. errors will come, that will b the best session to teach him how to fix stuffs on his own, but its not necessary to start with that. they can try an installation in a vbox and whatever if they didnt have time to explain everything in the meantime of the installation cuz of any reason, so he will be able to reinstall or repair anyhow his computer on his own without begging the op. anyhow if uve got enough years behind u without having an own mature distro, ull know what to look after immediately on a fresh install, and probably that can be more than what the other can learn immediately. im totally not against learning, but it dont have to be painful for the 1st time, nor it must happen at all at once. if his friend is interested, then he will be willing to learn, but happiness is a thing for the interest! theres always enough stuffs to learn, dont worry about that! yes, it can be hard, to force ppl to learn, but it can b just potent to make ppl want to learn. it was enough for me to blame windows, i wanna love my system instead of that, and i really wanna share this feeling with others, but not the image that u must live in a dark cave eat cold pizza when the sun rises and try to figure out whats wrong with a bleeding nose. btw i still know that feeling very well, cuz im an engineer, that i started like 14yrz ago, and started to use linux like 12 yrs ago. anyway ppl really want this, as linux is getting friendlier, slowly more ppl start to like it, and theres nothing surprising in this. they says on linux u can do everything u can imagine, but this is the theory only. no, u cant! its extremely complex, and no human can handle in the sense of capacity. u cant learn everything, and u cant make everything u can imagine. u dont even know whats running on ur machine, u wont ever be able to learn what u have, and its also moving forward insanely fast. its really needs to be simplified! and im not about taking away the potency in it, but taking away the duty that dont serve u, even if it teach u. u know what u wanna learn, but its much better if u have time to learn that instead of kill ur time on duties that just pop into ur way. i think even if not everything, but a lot more could be achieved from all of those dusty dreams that we all have if the linux world would be overcomplicated. (sure, its complicated anyhow, but can u imagine how much overhead we have?)
btw how u give/show the linux experience for newbies? what about those who are not sure, but u want them to stay on the board for any reason? (like ur mum for example.) does the linux experience really have to mean that u have to b alone in the dark with a screwdriver, a bleeding system and some smoke and fire here and there? for me its mainly freedom security and reliability, and, for sure, also diy, but more in the sense of engineering than firearming.
sorry for too much words… have a nice day buddy! and im really interested in how u imagine the linux experience!