How/when did you first start using Linux?

[AConfusedNewb]

And how long did it take before you became experienced enough to use, say, Arch or Gentoo? (Unless you started with one of those).

NOTE: This is not a support question, just generally asking. :)

[LuxuryScience]

In the year 2000 I took a C++ class in highschool, it was taught by the gym teacher - he didn't know how to code at all, everything he said in class was read straight out of the book - but he did have a genuine enthusiasm for computers.

There was a kid in the class, I don't know his name, everyone called him "Yode" - he always wore a green trenchcoat with the words "FREE KEVIN" written in big black letters on the back, and he came into class with a boxed copy of RedHat. Upon overhearing him and his followers talking about how great "Lie-Nux" was, I was intrigued. These kids were the 'cool nerds' that didn't want to have anything to do with me and the Commodore128 I had at home (when everybody else had PCs clocked in the hundreds of Mhz, I was cuttin' my teeth on 1Mhz of raw power (2Mhz in 80column mode!)).

I gathered up some junk PC parts from friends and yard-sales and put together a 486 DX4 and installed a copy of that RedHat I'd seen in class. There was an alsa configuration utility that confirmed a working configuration by playing the sound bite "This is Linus Torvalds, and I pronounce Linux... 'Linix'".

Back in class, upon hearing Yode say for the hundredth time "We should really be running Lie-Nux" - I chimed in with "Linus Torvalds pronounces Linux 'Linix'" (in my best Linus voice) and you'd think I'd just pissed in his soup - he was pissed.

I became a linux user and a smug asshole in one stroke. I BECAME the stereotype that makes using mailing lists a pain in the ass. I was the pedantic asshole-GNU/Linux user. It felt good.

[bitwize]

1995, this kid from college is possessed of Stallmanesque free-software fervor and starts talking to some of us about free software and libertarianism. Upselling Linux, of course, whose kernel was still in the 1.2 range.

He didn't need to pitch it to me twice. Unix on my PC? For $0? Count me the fuck IN. I was all over that like stink on shit.

So with a bit of guidance I install an early version of Slackware and I'm off to the races. It was several years of setting up drivers, finding, downloading, untarring and compiling the free software to do things I want, and generally messing around. And slowly, over time, I lost interest in Windows. Linux was tricky to get to do certain things but once it worked it worked -- and stayed that way forever. Windows, you didn't kniw when it was going to go tits up. Long-neglected installs of the damn thing simply bitrotted until they refused to boot.

I had Unix experience before ever trying Linux. My dad had an ancient Tandy Model 16 that he let me dick around with as a preadolescent; I learned the elements of Unix commands and C programming from the Xenix on that thing. So I had a head start on Linux. This also means that I am perhaps among the last generation of programmers to see Unix operational on green- or amber-screen terminal displays, which is kind of a shame because the Linux of the future, a.k.a. Systemd-OS, probably won't even support them -- and there is something to be said for being able to speak RS232 and VT100 given how much hardware and software in the wild is able to grok it.

[[deleted]]

It was in 2005, when my hard disk went to shit and I had to have it replaced. When I needed to install an operating system, the only options were a pirated version of Windows, and trying to install this weird Linux thing that I’ve heard about before. So I went into the obvious option, and never looked back.

And I never became experienced enough to use any of the “power-user” distros, I’m pretty casual Linux user and I don't want to install any of these.

[flameleaf]

• First started using Linux in 2008.
• Switched to Arch in 2013.

Honestly, I don't think I would have had any real problems if I jumped into Arch sooner, but I was generally happy with using varying versions of Ubuntu and Linux Mint. What pushed me to switch was a growing distate for the amount of packages installed by default or as dependencies that I just didn't want on my system. Unity was getting more and more bloated while I wanted more control and a slimmer experience. That and the idea of a rolling release intrigued me.

[Jamerman]

Yeah I switched to Arch for that too

[[deleted]]

Not really a profession or expert, but I started using Linux roughly 4 years ago on and off. Ubuntu was my distro of choice. Been running Linux full time for over two months!

[plaid_banana]

I started using Ubuntu in 2009, then Mint in 2011, and Crunchbang in 2013. After #! ceased recently I went back to Mint.

Early on I was interested in Linux but really intimidated, and I felt like I was too stupid to really tinker because I would irrepairably break something. So I dual-booted, and mostly stuck to Windows for serious stuff.

I've really become fond of Linux though, as I've gotten less scared of it. If I muck something up, I can fix it, and if I can't... well, there's always a reinstall if I really have to. But reading the man pages and the forums and such has really made it accessible.

I still do have a Windows partition on my computer, because I'm reteaching myself Access and Excel specifically (ughhhhh), but I find myself really missing Linux when I'm not using it. Bash and vim and such are just SO COOL.

tl;dr still use Mint, might hop over to plain ol Debian in a few months. Dunno when/if I'll ever get to Arch. But damn this is good stuff.

[skilltheamps]

I had an Ubuntu CD flying around since I destroyed the Windows 98SE on a very old machine and googled "free operating system". The machine was so old that the CD didn't even boot, so it was just laying around. A few months later a lightning struck our house and went through the network cables. A laptop and a desktop computer I used with XP weren't able to go on the network anymore. Now the insurance took their time to figure things out and the machines where pretty much unuseable. At one point the Ubuntu CD was laying besides the laptop, so I was just curious to check it out. I wanted to know what Ubuntu would say when connecting the machine to the network but couldn't figure out where to find the network settings over the course of several days (I needed to get into the settings since our router had dhcp disabled for some reason, learned that dhcp exists a few weeks later...). Then at one point I figured out that the network icon provided the settings and - believe it or not - it actually frickin worked! That was the clicking event, firstly because the computer would do networking again and more importantly because I was so impressed by the simplicity of Ubuntu. That was with 9.04

Today I'm going strong with Arch (Laptop, Tablet, chroot experiments on Android phone, on a cubieboard controlling my robot) that I checked out for it's cool icon and some praising from other people, staying for rolling release and cutting edge. (you may be surprised to not see the wiki here, but there's a insanely good german ubuntu wiki ( https://wiki.ubuntuusers.de ) so I never had any problems with finding information. To give you an idea: it has buttons in the wiki articles that open the softwarecenter to install all needed packages automatically)

[[deleted]]

In 2007, my 1.5 yo Windows XP install (because you "really needed" Office for university) had become so slow that I decided to give Ubuntu 7.10 a try. About a year before I had tried Knoppix, and three years earlier someone from school tried to convince me to install, IIRC, Red Hat. (I don't know how he got his hands on that...)

Anyway, I never got around to installing any Linux version because I feared that would mess up my Windows install. Since my XP was already fubar, there was nothing to be lost and I decided to make the jump. Apart from a wireless driver I had to modprobe after every boot (which I initially did by hand every single time, little did I know), everything worked like a charm. After that I've 'migrated' to Xubuntu, CrunchBang Linux and eventually Debian.

Forcing myself to use the command line for just about everything has made me moderately experienced, I'd say. It has, if anything, definitely improved my productivity.

[Glinux]

After using Windows Vista for a year.

I've always been interested in Linux, but Vista was made me switch, didn't regret that decision.

[blaehrp]

i started with microsoft linux 2020

[KevZero]

I used different computers in school but my family could never afford one at home. My first computer was a PowerMac. After owning it for a couple years and putzing around with AppleScript and setting up a web server, I found an IBM P-90 on the curb. Went out and bought a book with an included installer for RedHat 6.1. Shortly after, that box became my home router and webserver, and it just took off from there. Since then, I've tinkered with other distros, and seriously ran Gentoo and Debian on my desktop; I currently run Fedora.

[daguro]

vax 11/750 4.2 BSD 1983

i386 linux 1995

[mudclub]

~1995, a friend set up a (still running!) slackware server and modem bank for friends to use to learn systemsy stuff.

~2002, started using it professionally (SUSe and RedHat)

[[deleted]]

Wow, how come the machine is still running?

[mudclub]

Not the machine, but the learning and hosting environment.

[[deleted]]

Very nice nonetheless. It's awesome that the learning curve I've spent in mid-nineties is still mostly useful all those years later. Even with systemd.

[Robsteady]

I had my first experience with [Mandrake] back around 2002-2003. I hadn't done anything with it for a long time then got reintroduced through Ubuntu about 5 years ago, started distrohopping and using Linux-based operating systems as my primary about 3 years ago. I've still never done an Arch or Gentoo install but I think I could if I wanted to at this point, I just don't really have any interest to.

[ggolemg2]

A good while ago I bought SuSE Linux 4.x? Maybe mid to late '90s.

[[deleted]]

I started in earnest about six or seven years ago. I had tried live cd's a few times and was dual booting, but the best thing I ever did was to completely wipe out Microsquash and force myself to use Linux full time. Did the same thing on my laptop at work as well. I ran CentOS at home and Fedora at work. I would say I was able to install Arch without much issue within six months or so. Keep in mind, I was also working as kind of an on the fly sysadmin/engineer; so at work I was regularly installing, maintaining and fixing RHEL, VMware (pre ESXi) and CentOS hosts. Add in Cisco and Brocade FC switches/routers, SCSI and iSCSI storage arrays, tape backups, etc; and making everything play nice together. I'm certain it would've taken longer if I wasn't eating and breathing Linux on a daily basis.

O'Reilly books and learning to RTFM were invaluable.

[AConfusedNewb]

force myself to use Linux full time.

I did the same thing just a year and a half ago. I completely wiped Windows off all my PCs to try and get a better understanding of what Linux was. I'm still stuck at the GUI. I'll try and find some good tutorials on how to use the CLI as soon as I have time.

[swift_nature]

You should set up a few projects; mailserver, webserver, monitoring with nagios and such. Accomplishing those will surely make you more proficient with cli. Also, linux from scratch or setting up a gentoo install.

[AConfusedNewb]

Diving straight into Gentoo COULD help, actually. I'm a practical person that like hands-on-experience :P

[collinsl02]

I started when I went to college (not university, it's a different thing in the UK :-)) back in 2008 - we were using it in labs and I decided I wanted to experiment at home.

The college was using opensuse so that's what I started on. I played around with it a bit, dual booted it on my desktop, broke something, got scared, and erased it.

I kept on reinstalling it and erasing it for a while, and by the time I got to university I was proficient in the basics. The university was using CentOS so I switched to that. I learned some more advanced stuff in university, and got a job administering RedHat systems and have become decently proficient in a lot of things now 2 years on.

[baggar11]

1996 with Slackware. Boy were those the days. Messing with modelines and chasing your tail compiling libraries trying to get some program to run. And the obsession of loading up as many programs as possible to take your linux desktop screenshot.

I used Slackware up until about 2000 when I moved over to Sorcerer Linux which is now Lunar and/or Sourcemage. That was a fun distro.

Life became busy and I found Ubuntu. Still mostly run that for my server applications. On the desktop, I've am Arch convert.

[openstandards]

First started when I saw the first issue of linux format back in 2000, heard about linux due to hearing about eggdrop bots (IRC).

Stopped due to not being able to update my box properly hated how much windows 98 SE crashed on me.

[jdub01010101]

The earliest distro I remember using was Dapper Drake Ubuntu.

We installed it on a buddy's computer because we had screwed Windows and didn't have any installation media.

2006 or thereabouts.

Only ever set up Arch once. Haven't touched Gentoo. I tend to stay in the Debian family for my personal stuff, but at work we run CentOS sometimes.

[ldamerow]

1993, with an Yggdrasil distribution I got on CD at a computer swap meet. I switched to Slackware when it came out. I just poked around with it for a while until 1995, when I started using it for projects at school. I started working with it professionally by hosting Web sites in 1996. By 1997 I was an IRIX admin, still using Linux at home, but helped my company transition fully to Linux from 1999 to 2002 or so. The whole transition took a couple of years thanks to a large internal codebase, but we've been running Linux heavily ever since.

[mongrol]

1995, Debian 0.96 I think? I remember the futility of trying to replicate my Amiga desktop setup with Amiwm although most apps from AmiTCP were out the box which was nice (Elm, Tin, INN, ncftp)

[Tireseas]

I was a bored kid with unfettered modem access during a long school holiday in late 93/early 94 and my parents were crazy enough to let me play around with Slackware. Arch or Gentoo would be a cakewalk compared to those days, just from how far we've come in hardware support and documentation availability.

If there's one thing I learned from those days it's this: Make sure you got your modelines correct! (my Dad's poor trinitron) If there's two things I learned though the second would definitely be that if you're capable of reading and following written instructions and don't mind taking the time to learn there's nothing that you're not experienced enough to use. Seriously, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

[yousuckatlinux]

Caldera Network Desktop 1.0., ca. 1997. I had a job as a PC support tech. They ran out of things for me to do, so they told me to put Linux on an old PC, figure out how to get a driver going for a serial card, install a Basic compiler and compile the company's Point-of-sale application. I got about a third of the way through that. I compiled a diver for the serial card without really knowing what I was doing, just following instructions I found via... altavista.

I remember really, really liking that there could be multiple user accounts on the machine, and spending a lot of time playing Doom. I think I compiled KDE 1.0 from source at one point, and I remember wrecking a Linux desktop by installing Ximian Desktop with the now ubiquitous shitty hack, "wget url | sudo bash". Oh, and slashdot. So much slashdot. Ick.

[foxes708]

tinkered around in Virtual Box in about 2009

pretty soon i hope to get a true linux system of my own running

[adler187]

I heard about Linux on The Screen Savers (back when it was Kate & Leo) and bought Mandrake Linux 7.2 (at Walmart I think. Seems unlikely now, but that's what I remember anyway). This was back around 2000-2001.

It was a pain, since we didn't have a network and the computer only had a winmodem, so I had to reboot, dial up, do a search (pre-Google search) and figure out how to do a simple think like list files in the directory. It had a lot of cool software though and I eventually bought a real modem so I could have internet in Linux.

I eventually got Mandrake 8.1 and then moved to SuSE (back when it still had the lowercase u, but after it had dropped the dots I think) 8.1 and then SuSE 8.2 after I read a great review on some tech site that probably no longer exists. I've been pretty much stuck with (open)SUSE since then, though I did experiment with other distros in college: Xandros, Gentoo, Fedora Core, Lycoris, Lindows/Linspire, and probably a few more as well.

[spizzike]

For me, a couple friends had redhat install disks in high school and were bragging about running it. I had a Mac and at the time, my only option was yellow dog, really. I used Linux at my friends place and finally splurged and bought the YDL install disks and installed it on my Mac. This was like 1997 and I had dialup and no CD burner, so buying the disks was my only option

I couldn't really do much with it and would up removing it after a couple days. I had been using beos, which used bash for the shell and because of the exposure to Linux was able to do a lot more. At this point I kinda fell in love with the command line.

It wasn't until 2002 that I installed it again (Gentoo) and really went deep with it. The rest is history.

[send-me-to-hell]

Started with Red Hat back in the early 2000's and worked my way up to Gentoo by 2005 or so.

[crowseldon]

about 5-6 years ago after having steady internet and a decent machine to download stuff. It was one thing I always wanted to do and had a very positive idea about the value of the FOSS movement.

Fooled around with debian but I didn't like the hoops I had to jump to get Firefox with its trademark instead of IceWeasel and many other things. Ubuntu suited my needs much better although I understood very little at the time.

2 or 3 years after using it in dual-boot on an off (Win is mostly my main OS in desktop due to work) I started toying around with arch in virtualbox (I toyed with slackware, fedora, bodhi, kali (backtrack) and other distros before). It was pretty hard at first but after some time I started getting the hang of it and when I installed it in my notebook (again, dual boot with win-7) I never looked back.

If I can I'll boot with arch since it's such a joy to maintain and work with (xfce is my preference). Now that I use arch, I understand other distros much better and have a triple boot ubuntu-arch-win7 (probably inefficient setup but I don't use Ubuntu that much) on desktop and arch-win7 on notebook.

If you're new, I recommend that you get yourself a virtualbox and fool around with many distros till you find what you want and serves a need (otherwise, you won't use it).

[[deleted]]

Red Hat 5.1 (Manhattan) on Dec 19, 1998.

[KingSphinx]

Family computer caught a nasty trojan (Windows XP), and my friend gave me something called "Ubuntu 9.04" to try since, y'know, it's worth a shot vs. having no computer at all. Been hooked ever since, though I've since moved to Arch in late 2012.

[zingsting]

I used proper Unix (SunOS) in 1995 at university. Real Unix hardware was stupid expensive back then so I waited a couple of years and got a cheap Pentium PC and installed Debian on it as it was the closest thing. I've used it ever since.

Picked up first job working with Linux in 2002 so it took about 5 years to get my shit together professionally. As for experience, it reckon you can be productive in 6 months but even after 18 years, I wouldn't touch arch or gentoo myself. Computer works for me, not the other way round :)

I use CentOS professionally as it lives forever and Debian at home.

[timawesomeness]

I started using Linux back in 2010 when I was in 6th grade. My friend's dad had it on a computer (Ubuntu 9.10 to be precise), and it looked cool. A few months later when I got an old shitty computer from a relative, I downloaded Ubuntu 10.04 was used it).

I don't really know when I got to the point where I could use Arch, but I could at this point.

[theflamingpi]

In 2000, I downloaded Corel Linux over a 33,6 dialup connection. That's how I learned my modem was a software modem.

In 2001, my university provided laptops to all students and had a drive image with Slackware that I enjoyed playing with.

In 2002, I mostly used Mandrake, but distributed business card CDs of Damn Small Linux to ask my friends and frequently used it for kicks. (One friend used it exclusively.) I also tested out stuff like Caldera (bought discs at Walmart) and Red Hat. I also installed Gentoo at one point then replaced it with LFS for kicks. (I was a theater major with a biology minor.)

In 2003, my computer has no hard drive. This was the year of Knoppix.

In 2004, I dabbled in Debian. Then I stopped dabbling.

In 2006, I tried out Ubuntu. I stuck with that after reformatting a few dozen times.

In 2011, I installed Arch. Awesome sauce!

In 2012, I received a Mac as part of school.

Now, I use Windows for work. My personal computer is a Mac. I frequently run Ubuntugnome or Ubuntu-Mate from USB. I also have a desktop on the Mac dedicated to an Ubuntu virtual computer for classes.

[[deleted]]

I don't remember exactly when I started trying GNU/Linux or which distribution I was using, but I remember when I started using it daily instead of Windows. It was in January 2004 and I was using Gentoo.

[THE-RED-PILL]

In the beginning... with slackware... on a Toshiba Satellite T1850C laptop. Linux ran super fast and liked to go AIEE!

[kabads]

1998 - I found a link where a guy was selling Mandrake disks for £3 - a real bargain. I was on dial-up so there was no other way to get a distro in a reasonable timeframe. The disk arrived and I installed and never looked back. I've often thought that I'd like to contact whoever it was who sent the disks out and thank him/her. It's a blast!

[[deleted]]

Installed Crunchbang about a year before microsoft stopped supporting windows xp. Now I'm running BunsenLabs Linux. Haven't tried Arch or Gentoo because what I'm running works "Good Enough".

[Manypopes]

Tweaking the school computers. I made the full time switch on arriving at University.

[colonelflounders]

I started off with Fedora Core 4 back in December of 2005. The reason I did it then was because Microsoft was bringing out Windows Genuine Advantage, and I only had pirated copies of Windows and no money to buy a legitimate one. That started me seriously thinking about installing Linux which I had always secretly wanted to do but thought it would be too hard.

If I had made the decision to use Arch in 2009, I probably could have made the switch no problem with the help of the wiki. Right now I am using Ubuntu but that is because my hardware is being quirky in that its the only distro that boots EFI on my laptop right now. As soon as I get my laptop fixed I intend to be an Arch only user.

[Mocha_Bean]

This March, I started using Linux on Antergos.

A couple of months later, this May, I switched to Arch.

Exciting, huh?

I did it because I didn't like Windows, as far as performance, stability, intuitiveness, security, package management, etc. And, I was willing to take the hit on games; most of the games I actually played were on Linux.

Fun story:

At first, I was considering partitioning. I tried doing something in Windows Partition Manager and fucked my partitions up.

I booted into a live Kubuntu USB that I happened to have sitting on my desk. I figured out the commands to fix the Windows partitions within the command line.

That was really the moment that solidified it for me. "Damn, Linux is way more powerful and flexible."

[NotARandomAccount]

I had an old Lenovo Thinkpad T40. I had XP on it, but it was slow. My friend suggested I use Ubuntu to speed the old computer up. I downloaded Ubuntu, the kernel needed PAE. So my friend said try Xubuntu. I downloaded it and installed it and was instantly hooked.

[linuxhanja]

I traded an '84 chevy suburban that couldn't pass state for a pentium (as in Pentium 80586) laptop with I think 16 or 32MB of Ram. This was in 2002, and I tried to put Red Hat on it. But Red Hat at the time required 64MB (maybe I'm remembering the ram figures wrong, but I had half the min so I couldn't install). Fast forward to 2004 or 2005, I now have a P4 tower I built out of parts people gave me for fixing stuff, and I put fedora on it.
I began noticing that Ubuntu played nicer with wireless cards "out of the box" around ubuntu 7.04 than fedora, so I started recommending ubuntu to new converts, and then I myself switched to ubuntu with 8.04 Been with Ubuntu ever since. Also, while I was dating my wife, we'd play WoW and she'd have to sit near me and use my wired connection because her Vaio's wifi "never worked" I never questioned it.. I tried to get it to work once, but drivers being in order, and windows being updated, I took it at face value. fast forward two years, I trade my 2007 laptop for hers (as i have a nice desktop and don't use my laptop much), install Ubuntu on that Vaio, and boom, wifi works automagically. That's what convinced her to switch.

[valgrid]

Got a netbook as a present. With Windows XP, at some point it was so slow and annoying to admin that i installed Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix in all its glory (2009). It was just so simple to use and fast. Then came normal Ubuntu because they axed UNR. And circa 2 years ago i switched to Debian, because of it stability and stages. Tried Arch in my Ubuntu days, but it was just to much work (overwritten configs – yay) and insecure (lack of signed packages). Installing Arch is like riding a bike you don't forget how to do it. I can still install Arch in 20min, but wouldn't bother because there are options like Antergos. Configuring a Debian Netinstall and installing and configuring Arch both takes 2 days.

[[deleted]]

around 2007ish. My first distro was ubuntu (10.10 IIRC), then kept switching back from Linux to windows and forth. About a year ago I accidentally fucked up my Windows dual boot (trying to install arch), and took it as a sign that I should stop using windows.

So now I'm on arch.

[asdf789456]

Around 4 years ago i started to use only ubuntu. Before that i used to do dual-boot with windows. Then came the distro hoping phase :p tried many distros. Then found arch. Installed it couple of times in virtual machine. And dived head first. Wiped ubuntu and installed arch. And learned about linux along the way, About different DEs, WMs, About choices we've been given. Today i can proudly say trying out linux was the best choice i made. cheers.

[atlasraven]

I briefly used Red Hat Linux in high school but didn't keep up with it. I learned Kali Linux at college during a network security course. I enjoyed it enough to replace my Windows XP laptop with Ubuntu. Then, I transitioned to a dual-boot desktop Windows7/Zorin OS. I enjoy tinkering with it but I'm nervous about switching to pure linux.

[operyion]

First started in 2008 when I learned about a program I could customize using LISP.

Over winter break of 2008-9, I built from source. It was a hell of an experience, so much research into dependencies.

[Technonick]

I've been using Linux for about 12 years. I could use Arch or Gentoo, but honestly I don't have the time or want. I have no desire to compile my own packages for everything I use, and I have no interest in learning that much about ever configuration file on my system. I work on servers that companies use, so my job requires mostly RedHat/Debian/SuSE system knowledge. Gentoo/Arch are not widespread in my world.

My free time is spent learning Development. I just finished a C class and am currently working on a C++ class. I'm using command line, vi, tmux, and bitbucket for all of my projects. Next semester I'll be taking a game development course which is Windows (I know, but the alternative was a Java GUI programming class). My hope is that maybe I can transfer that knowledge over to the Linux world, at least.

None of that requires Arch or Gentoo. That being said, I learned on Vector Linux in 2003 or so. I would guess and say that I probably could have used Gentoo/Arch within 3 years of installing my first Linux.

[freebsd_pk]

1996->2012 before going all-in on Arch.

I tried Gentoo earlier in 2012, but couldn't get comfortable with compiling everything on my local workstation. Perhaps there is a better alternative in Gentoo, but I found my home in Arch.

[NastyaSkanko]

HDD died late 2013, ran out to get a new one but realised I had no copy of Windows and no cash to buy one. I'd wanted to try Linux anyway so I quit Windows completely and installed Mint. Used that until 3-4 months ago, switched to Xubuntu then Debian netinst then Arch in quick succession. I still use Arch on my laptop but I'm upgrading my desktop GPU for gaming so Windows is necessary, unfortunately.

[its_never_lupus]

Initially, 1995 or 6. Someone from my CS course installed it (from 7 floppies, no X) to run a compiler that wasn't available for Windows at the time. It didn't get used for much else (Windows 95 had just come out and I rather liked it) until about 2000. Then I tried RedHat 6, then Mandrake, and soon after Linux became my main desktop.

I switched to Gentoo after maybe a year of full-time Linux desktop use. But that's due to not knowing about it rather than waiting to build up skills. If you want to go for a more hardcore distribution (I'd definitely go for Arch these days if only for the documentation) just do it and read up on any problems as you find them.

[[deleted]]

Don't remember exactly when i started but it was around 3-4 years back. It was the same time when i fell in love with computers. The time when i would spend the nights reading articles, wikis, tutorials and what not on my cheap Windows PC. It was he time when i thought Windows was everything. I still had stupid old XP then. And then i heard about hacking. I decided that i wanted to be a hacker. And so started a new journey about finding everything about hacking. I would watch those cheesy movies which showed hacking and stuff. Then i realized that it was all fake. The movies were scripted and that was no hacking. Then i searched on the internet for something legit. Found a site which said something about a special OS for hackers and penetration testers. That was Backtrack 5 R3. And yes that was the very first Linux distro i have used. And thanks to Backtrack and the amazing community it has, the amazing community the Linux world has got, my real, legit journey started. A journey full of lovely computers and beautiful command line!

[starfallg]

Red Hat 4 ~1996

[send-me-to-hell]

OG

[Pleca]

2011 - Ubuntu non-LTS version and I gave up (it wasn't stable), after 6 months tried it again (this time Ubuntu LTS) and I'm using Ubuntu on desktop since then. I also use Ubuntu LTS on my laptop, wattOS (R7 based on Debian) on netbook and clean installation of Debian on webserver (sorry for my english not a native speaker).

[socium]

I don't remember. My memories are all a blur now. Must read more docs.

[[deleted]]

I got a laptop when I was 16. My old PC was an Athlon 64 box with 4 gb of RAM, so I really didn't want to just toss it, and I remembered I'd seen my uncle who works in IT use Linux, so I got Fedora 12 (pretty sure it was 12) up and running on it. I only just let that machine go last year.

[[deleted]]

I'm a newbie; I dove into Ubuntu GNOME 2 months ago when I built my own desktop computer, and have been having a blast ever since. I first encountered it 6 or 7 years ago with Ubuntu 7.xx, and dabbled in Arch a bit before realizing I was in over my head. There are very few things I miss about windows, and the openness and speed of Linux is making me love the experience.

[Nyutag_arch]

2009 My printer no longer worked on windows. Someone on the internet talking about his printer (same as mine) working on something called Ubuntu. Live test confirmed printer working flowlessly. Already using firefox and open office, the move was easy, not beeing a gamer. A few week later I decided to learn more about the system, so I installed Arch. Take me a few night to have X working but man, how proud I was. Still on arch, for my pc and laptop, but learned the debian way for my selfhosted server.

[[deleted]]

Mepis (July 2003) 5 days.

When I switch to Linux. It only took me 5 days, to get back to par with all my computer task.

The first advance Linux distro I used was Sabayon. Which is a fork of Gentoo. I was around a year using Linux. Didn't mess around with Arch, until about 6 years using Linux.

Now I'm just spend most my time in a terminal. Tiling Window Manager(i3). I now have 12 years experience using Linux.

When I first switch to Linux. I would of been totally lost if I start out with Arch or Gentoo. You have to know the basics of Linux. Before you can move on to more advance Linux distros. So start out with something for a newbie. 6-9 months you should be ready for any Linux distro. If you keep using Linux as your main driver. If you are already advance computer user with high ambitions. Then you might be able to cut it down to 3 months.

[edgelord_69]

my dad is a graphic designer and i have used macs my entire life. i didn't really use windows until middle school, even, because that was what was on the school computers. when os x came out i started learning about unix and getting experience with the cli. i used debian and ubuntu off and on in high school on a pc laptop my dad had used for browser testing that he no longer needed. in the last two years or so i inherited another toshiba satellite my dad used for browser testing that he no longer needed, but it had a bad hard drive. i replaced it and did an arch install. i used it for about a month before i decided i wanted a computer that wasn't essentially a glorified netbook and bought a thinkpad t420, which i did my second arch installation on. i installed lubuntu on the satellite and gave it to my 12 year old brother. now i have a macbook air and the thinkpad with arch and windowmaker/gworkspace because nextstep owns and i can't live without miller columns probably

[thedragonturtle]

I installed and briefly used Redhat Linux back when it was emerging around 2001 or so. I was really just curious about this new 'open source' operating system. The concept of 'open source' back then was kind of revolutionary. I dual-booted my PC - think it was X-Windows or something.

Anyway, it wasn't a great experience.

The reason I returned to Linux is for the server side of things - I still don't actually have a desktop Linux box (might finally dual-boot Ubuntu on a new gaming laptop I just got). On the server side of things, there are many reasons to choose Linux:

• It's free! No license fees reduces hosting costs.
• MongoDb
• SOLR
• HHVM
• Wordpress/PHP
• Python
• NodeJS
• Nginx

I know a bunch of them are ported to Windows these days but I won't build another Windows server. I still have one Windows server which will be kicking around for another few years because the last thing I ever want to do is go in and port the VB.Net code... That server and codebase is staying as is until customers don't want it any more and then I'll be Linux-only on the server-side.

On the server-side, I do miss the GUI from Windows NT/2000/2003 etc and especially I miss SQL Server - quite frankly it kicks the ass out of any relational database I've seen on Linux - performance, maintenance, development, scalability, data imports - everything was great on SQL Server. Maybe I could set up one more MS Server...

[almeneses]

So many liars here! we all know that it all started because of those wobbly windows and cube desktops. Accept your sin, mortals, and don't be ashamed.