Boris apparently had a very traumatic experience with a 386 and a pile of slackware floppies a few years back... It scared away a lot of people for life.
Funny comment from this blog

_ Joi Ito installs Ubuntu on a ThinkPad:

"I bought a discounted IBM T42 ThinkPad and installed Ubuntu on it. I decided that I would try to get switched over to Linux (for now) before I headed off to OSCON later this week. It was amazingly easy to install and wifi, suspend and various hardware goodies seem to work. I still haven’t gotten my printer set up or my DVDs to play… Anyway, we’ll see if I’ll be able to make this trip without bringing my PowerBook."

ubuntu.::.ibm