I used to think that helping my other dumb grad mates with installing Linux made me look cool and I would be accepted. On the contrary, I looked like an idiot, now that I think of it. i became that weirdo support tech kid for the idiot professors, who could not tell the difference between Java and Javascript.

I guess the worst part is that people will eventually take advantage of you... and demand for more and more hours of your free support, hold whatever you installed against you like "after you did X... Y stopped working" etc. At the end of the day if you're proving free support it must be easy, quick why wouldn't they ask for more.

In their heads your efforts / help doesn't provide any value and if by any chance one day they are in a situation where you could bill them or someone for tech support they would rather call any other random tech support guy or company instead of calling you - after all they're looking for a "professional" now :)