What has your experience with Linux been like so far? How long has been your Linux journey? Mine began while I was studying computer science, and I’ve been in love with Linux since.

  • I bought a copy of Corel Linux in 2001 at a USAF base exchange because I was a broke airman and was building my first homebuilt PC and didn’t want to shell out money for Windows, and I didn’t have Internet to pirate it in the dorms (this was the days of no wifi and pay as you go Internet cafes). I thought it’d be JUST like Windows, and I could get shit done, and the differences were just like those between Mac/PC. Just a different interface.

    Boy was I wrong. It sucked balls. I didn’t pick up Linux again until Ubuntu in 2006. Now I daily drive Debian. Oh well, at least it came with an inflatable penguin.

    • I think in 2001 I was making a Linux from scratch system having not gotten enough from red hat and Debian with home configured and compiled kernels

      Fun times and no, nothing like the commercial home operating systems back then

      • Oh yeah. Ubuntu really simplified everything.

        My first distro on my own PC was Mandrake. I don’t know how many times I had to reinstall it because of my fuckups.

        Two years later I was compiling my own kernel with the source code of special modules that I had downloaded for my NVidia card that had composite video input.

        I’ve never had to compile a kernel since Ubuntu. I completely forgot to be honest.

  • Way back in the day (say 1990) I used the Commodore Amiga platform, loved it, made me want to become a developer. It also already back then instilled a hatred for Microsoft in me.

    Then windows 95 happened, the Amiga platform pretty much died, and I reluctantly switched to using Microsoft windows. For years I gave it a chance, I really did! I hated pretty much everything about it, except total Commander and Irfan view

    Somewhere in 99 i bought a mini home server, and a friend of mine installed Slackware. I managed to break it within days and thought Linux was just too hard.

    Then in 2001 or so I started working with a Redhat server, I believe first over telnet, then SSH and I started learning about the command line and loved it. I leaned compiling which was a bit of a drag to have to always do, but then I learned about packages and very shortly after that, package managers (yum was the first, I believe) and fell in love.

    Then in 2002, I believe, I saw either fedora or Redhat desktops and learned about dual installations. I installed fedoara next to my windows install so that o could try it and work with the familiar windows, but I loved it so much that I quite literally never looked back. 3 months later I deleted my windows partition.

    2004, I think, I switched to Ubuntu with KDE which later became Kubuntu.

    I worked on a Linux desktop machine that allowed on 1 gigabyte Celeron CPU computer with one internal graphics and 4 graphics cards, usb splitters and usb Audio, keyboards, and mice, 5 users to work with KDE on that single computer. Novus, it was called. The project was a technical success and a huge commercial failure and since it was with an external investor, we weren’t allowed to make it open source, unfortunately.

    I started working in a large data center in Latin America in around 2007, I believe, as a senior Linux administrator for 4 years, had a lot of laughs at the expense of the windows team, seeing how clunky and work intense their windows servers were in comparison with my Linux servers.

    Some four-five years later I started my own software development company, all Linux only. Everyone, including the devs, secretaries, sales, all worked on Linux machines. I transferred ownership someone else, and the company still persists.

    But I’ve been on Linux desktop only for well over 20 years now, still using Kubuntu or sometimes KDE neon or mint, but I’m “old” and much less interested in experimenting, I need a stable dependable desktop but I love the bling like KDE 3D desktop to show off to windows users to get them over to the dark side, we got cookies.

  • I started with a book about Red Hat 5.x that included a cd with the OS. I generally went back to Windows after a while (except i did run a server on an old pc for quite a while), but tried I again every few years.

    I always liked the idea of Linux, but gaming kept making me go back to Windows. Early last year I tried installing EndeavourOS alongside windows and have stuck with it since. My new PC that I got later that same year has never seen windows.

    I’m loving it, and don’t foresee a return to Windows.

    • Oh man same!

      2000s, with permission from the HS computer teacher, I was installing Red Hat on a few computers. It was ROUGH. Like, yeah we got it to show a desktop, but it was a nightmare to use anything but the basic applications. Windows just worked and after a few months, went back to that.

      Only during the pandemic did I finally go Linux. Started with ElementaryOS (highly recommend for old people) and went through a dozen other flavors. What really pushed me to expert level was setting up Linux servers.

      I no longer code on a Windows machine (unless I have to), and absolutely would recommend Linux to any end user. And now with Steam Deck/SteamOS, it’s only getting better. My gaming computer is still Windows, but I’m going to let it sunset. I barely use it except to play high-spec games that aren’t on Steam Deck. But that’s getting rarer and rarer.

  • I remember seeing that on the shelf next to a copy of SuSe during my regular visits to CompUSA. I had just barely developed an interest in computer gaming at the time, still a few years prior to my first experience with LiGNUx. I always wondered when it turned into Fedora and Red Hat went exclusively enterprise.

  • I’ve started several decades ago, with some ancient Slackware (?) version, downloaded using 56k line modem as 1.44 floppy images. Meanwhile I had a period of a difficult relationship with Windows (2000 was the least bad) and a longish affair with MacOS. Now Linux-only everywhere, for the last ~5 years.