I was chatting with a Windows-using friend recently, and he wanted to try Linux on one of his older computers. I always like those sorts of conversations, and so I kept chatting, walking him through setting up Unetbootin to create a USB installer and so on and so on. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to get the USB drive to boot. Since we were half a country apart, I couldn't troubleshoot locally, so we moved on to burning a CD/DVD.

My first instinct was to have him download the incredible InfraRecorder. Unfortunately, there seems to be a malware-infected version of InfraRecorder going around, and of course, that's the download link he found. So, be sure to send folks directly to http://infrarecorder.org to download it.

Image courtesy of http://www.visualpharm.com.

Alternatively, I'm a big fan of the free-but-not-free program ImgBurn as well. It's not open source, but it is freeware, and it has a very simple interface. Either way you go, be sure to warn potential Linux converts about the malware masquerading as open-source software. Remember to send people directly to the Web site rather than having them "google" for it. The open-source InfraRecorder is at http://infrarecorder.org, and the freeware ImgBurn is at http://www.imgburn.com. Once they switch to Linux, everything they need will be an apt-get or yum away!