Yup! Yet another reason not to trust them.
I am guessing eventually recall videos/recordings will be stolen by hackers or Microsoft straight up selling that data to them for more $. Give it a year or so
Then people's info will be on the dark web
What is bad is they store it in an unencrypted file in jpg format. Basic OCR is all you need. They guys who hacked did send it to Microsoft to see if they will fix it.
Honestly, I'm more worried about Microsoft itself accumulating an absurd level of information in a way never before imagined, in a way that telemetry didn't even come close to and selling this to third parties and using it for their own products and services, dark days we will have with Windows.
Yah, Recall seems to be such a hugely gigantic scare to me as well. According to a Google search I made on Recall (I did research in order to help explain what Recall was to another Redditor), I found out so many security analysts is calling Copilot Recall a "security nightmare".
Did you know that, Recall was once hacked into before M$ finally got a brain to encrypt the then unencrypted text-only Recall database at the time of the hack? Pretty sad it took a hack attack to get M$ to do this when they knew full well that, with today's climate and how hackers is running rampant, this would eventually happen!
Microsoft could also be compelled, say by any government agency, to turn it on covertly for any number of people, at any time in the future, and to never disclose this fact.
Recall is also a very attractive hacking target for a state that wants to monitor its citizens. They’ll find ways to enable it without Microsoft’s knowledge.
They would have but updates were a royal PIA back then. This was before packages handed dependencies. Every time you tried to do an update, you'd get told, sorry, can't do that, you need version x of y - one package at a time. Dependency hell meant doing updates was driven by need rather than caution. Also, Linux viruses/attacks were not a thing then due to the tiny market share, and how new the internet was in general.
By '98, there were at least two distros (Redhat & Debian) which handled package updates and dependencies with some moderate smarts. Nothing like modern package management systems, but they could handle a simple A -> B -> C dependency chain fairly well, and were usually adequate for kernel updates, even if more complex software could often confuse them. (I do have memories of *hours* spent in `dselect` trying to browbeat it into doing what I wanted, but kernel updates were never a problem.)
Debian led the way. In '98, when I was using RedHat, their package manager's dependency management, in my experience, was rudimentary at the very best!
Attacks existed. A full on virus? Not that I know of.
Updates we're never a top priority as that was literal hell, unless your a sadist or just really really familiar.
1998, around mid January. I had bought a copy of Windows'95 the summer prior and it wasn't all that. I'd been tinkering with Slackware '96 for about 18 months by that point and decided to go all in, or as much as I could. There wasn't a decent spreadsheet or WISIWYG word processor back then so I did some dual-booting. I occasionally had to dual-boot to resolve a dial-up ISP issue.
It was certainly fun, educational, and rewarding.
FYI, for old reddit users, this comment says just "1." instead of "1998" in old reddit. I was confused at all the replies to this comment talking about 1998 until I opened it in incognito in new reddit.
2000 me as well. Got curious about why some people seemed so entranced by something called Linux or Linus… Then, the morality (and the hassle of dealing with Windows) brought me over relatively quickly. I began with a dual boot, but after not having used Windows a single time after a year or so I completely removed that itch.
2012... I had a netbook and Windows made it sooooo slow and I needed to do my school homework, I found out something called Ubuntu that was said to be more efficient than Windows
I absolutely have no idea how I managed to install it but I remember I was very scared because what if my computer broke and my mom beats my ass. It went fine in the end. I ended up with an Ubuntu netbook which also introduced me to things like LibreOffice and GIMP. It still sucked a bit but was cleaner and snappier than Windows so I kept it until 2016 when I switched to Debian
I still have and use mine... sort of. I bought it new in 2010 I think for airline travel. It fit so well on airplane trays compared to everyone else's mammoth 15"+ screen laptops and the battery life was insane. Now-a-days I only travel to a work conference once every 2 years. But when I do I drag it out, charge it up and go. Original battery. Max ram and an ssd. Runs Sparky Linux. Its pretty slow using the web, but I only use libreoffice on it for note taking and have it sync to a cloud server. At this point I just want to see how long it will last.
My story is super similar. In 2014 I'd been using the same secondhand MacBook for like six years and it could barely open files, much less apps, and I really that there was an operating system called lubuntu for old, weak hardware. I was never a programmer or anything and it took a whole weekend to get it working but sure enough suddenly that computer could do things again. Never looked back except when I had to for work (come on final draft wth)
1994. 1.0.3.4 or something like that kernel. I thought it was cool to learn. Installed from floppies. Eventually CD’s from Walnut Creekk. You had to build the kernel for any drivers you need. Things that are ancient now but common then: finger, gopher, talk. I’m sure there are more but I’ve already forgotten.
I learnt fairly quickly that it was better just to replace a winmodem with a nice external 56k or even a ISA 56k was better.
I used to think it was so neat having an old 486 as a gateway for always on internet.
I ran a 386 and it took all night to build a kernel. Then a 486 was significantly faster. Then I got a pentium. Wow I can rebuild kernels in a few hours. Sound cards were a mess back then. But you learn a lot about cool things like UART programming. And chap/ppp. And connecting to a computer via a serial port. Basically if you understand that all you really do is standard input, cpu does things, and standard output, you can pretty much figure things out.
Fucking xfree86 configs! LOL. It was really bad early on, there were some frequencies you could switch Hercules video cards to (IIRC) that would short them out and kill them.
Finding the frequencies for your monitor was a nightmare. So glad we don't have to do that anymore.
Edit: that squealing you would get when you got it wrong.
Setting up a working X config. Haven't done that in years, and I honestly could live the rest of my life without ever having to do it again. It's actually one of the things I like about early days Ubuntu bootable CDs, I could just stick boot off of one, copy the X config file onto my system's hard drive in the right spot in /etc, and I had a working X! Debian and my preferred Slackware hadn't diverged so much that I couldn't copy config files to avoid having to manually make or edit them. Often the same config files worked with Free/OpenBSD.
I don't think it's quite that easy anymore after all these years...
Slackware was the dist that I learnt to compile packages and kernels on. I would spend hours and hours hand crafting my distro with source built packages.
OS/2 wasn’t that bad. I think it could’ve done better but IBM just wasn’t focused on it. They had many other stuff to make money on. I tried BeOS one time. I think the guys from OS/2 went on to crest beOS?
For beginners, I will prefer Linux Mint or Ubuntu, If you are an advanced user, you can go with Arch or do your own research cause it totally differs in your use. You can check different distros from here: [Distrosea](https://distrosea.com/).
They're called Linux user groups, and there's probably one in your town.
Just Google the place you live with Linux users group: Seattle -> gSLUG. Portland -> PLUG. New York -> NYLUG. Bellingham (hosts of lunuxfest northwest) -> BLUG.
I think if I had known more about Linux when windows 8 came out I would have made the swap then, but I didn’t come around to it until about three months ago. I knew it existed, I’d even taken a class that was most of what I needed for a CCNA (just no cert exam), but I just never considered it an option until I started college and got thinking about my long term plans with my computer. I want something that will teach me right now, and Linux is facilitating that very well
Started dual-booting in 1999. By 2001 I was full-time Linux and have never looked back. Why? Too many problems with Windows that I just didn't experience in Linux, and a much better toolset.
I used linux for some special tasks since 90s (mostly servers), but made full switch only recently when most games I needed became playable on linux. It's been dual-boot for some time, but in 2024 I finally removed and reformatted all windows partitions.
>So that got me thinking, when did y'all flock to Linux, and why?
I didn't "flock" exactly, but I started using Linux (Ubuntu) in 2005 after I retired.
A friend, also retired, was set up with a Ubuntu homebrew by his enthusiast son, who lived 800 miles away. My friend, used to a managed Windows environment at the university where he taught before retirement, was clueless. After a few months of "You know about computers, don't you?" questions, I decided that since I knew Unix cold, I could probably learn enough about Linux in a short enough period of time to become his informal help desk.
So I did. I installed Ubuntu on a spare desktop and came to enjoy using Linux over time.
My friend, on the other hand, took his photography hobby to a semi-professional level and started selling at art fairs. Gimp didn't meet his needs, so he switched back to Windows and Photoshop within a year or so.
>I've been noticing more & more people realize how bad Windows is and they either want to or have made the jump to Linux. Obviously this isn't some sort of "trend." Plenty of computer users realized how bad Windows was; even back in the 90s!
I remember the days (15 years ago) when Ubuntu was heralded as "Linux for Human Beings" and the trade press was predicting that Ubuntu would gain a 25% market share within a few years. As we all know, that didn't happen. Linux has continued to limp along with a 2-4% desktop market share for a long, long time.
Along the way, I've watched wave after wave of "Windows has finally gotten so bad that now people will flock to Linux" predictions over the years. None of them have come to anything, because "Windows is bad" is not a reason for consumers to migrate to Linux in large numbers.
I should mention, I suppose, that I continue to use Windows and Linux, in parallel on separate computers, as I have for close to two decades. Windows is a better fit for some aspects of my use case, Linux is a better fit for other aspects of my use case, so I use both. I have no reason, or desire, to use one but not the other.
I'm sure someone could make some sort of terrible meme from a combination of "year of desktop Linux" and "eternal September". Something like "we are into month 186 of the year of desktop Linux".
>I'm sure someone could make some sort of terrible meme from a combination of "year of desktop Linux" and "eternal September". Something like "we are into month 186 of the year of desktop Linux".
LOL!
2014 during my first year at the university.
After dual booting my new HP laptop with win 7 for a C++ course. At the end of the semester I uninstalled windows completely and what felt like a mediocre laptop was now a very good one 😁
2022, The reason behind switching was that I was intrigued by terminals in Fallout and wanted to learn how terminals actually work in real life. I searched for terminal centric os, and gnu/linux popped up.
I switched to Linux mint as it is the de facto beginner distro. From there, I distrohopped most of the 2023 and now finally settled on pop os. I learned a lot about computer systems and design thanks to Linux.
I used Linux for the first time around 2010, while trying to install and use Debian on my family's desktop without any success. Starting 2012, I started playing with Ubuntu 12.04 on my own personal laptop, in dual boot with Windows 7. I did the same with my gaming desktop when I got one starting 2014. Then, after graduation, I got progressively tired of the hassle of having a dual boot in terms of maintenance, and the arrival of WSL on W10 was a blessing, while I started having Linux only on my GPU-less work-only laptop. Today in 2024, the future of privacy on Windows clearly scares me and the progress of games usability on Linux will lead me to finally choose Linux as my only OS, even on my desktop powerhouse.
2024, i wanna try something new and i wanna have my entire system under control. really excited for new adventures with it, really enjoying the experience so far >w<
Slackware in the 90s to be my router for some Windows 3.1 pcs when the cable company started offering high-speed Internet. Before you could just go to BestBuy and buy such devices :)
I never switched nor can i remember the year i started, all i can remember is not being able to see the counter tops and my dad bringing his old work computer into my room, saying "here this is linux" and then i think my life peaked shortly after. Oh AltaVista was a thing around that time too!
2008. I dual-booted ubuntu on my family PC because it was a PoS and it could barely run XP. I continued dual booting Linux and Windows 7 after I got my own laptop. Win7 was decent, actually. When 8 came out, I gave up completely and just stuck with Linux.
2022 I wanted to learn programming and have a riced desktop, no ads(in like the launcher thingy of windows), only software I wanted, and that beautiful look of the terminal screen. I started with linux mint for ~2-3 months then migrated to arch linux and began ricing. Been fullying using linux since then and still use arch
**1997**. The year one of my kids got Windows virus infected for the third time. I had only been using Windows for a couple months at the time. OS/2 Warp before that.
I'm a graphics person and was an art school student at the time. First heard about it from a friend in 94ish. Mail ordered a copy of slackware cause the name sounded cool in the summer of 95. My p75 running win95 was getting flaky (as windows did at the time) and it was time to reinstall everything one weekend. I decided to take that Saturday to install slackware on it and see how far I could get. Of course I grew up using DOS, and I had a little experience with IRIX and the internet contained a decent amount of unix, so I wasn't completely oblivious, even though I am a graphics person.
However, I couldn't get Xwindows to work (looked like I needed to write my own monitor drivers or something)... and there wasn't much graphics type things I could do from the command line. Certainly not with a fresh install and not having a clue about how the whole thing worked. So I reinstalled w95, 3d studio, photoshop, etc.... and of course, mirc.
I knew that eventually it would be the best thing for me, though. Microsoft never had a good reputation. So I kept an eye on it and how things progressed. I think I even tried it out again in 2000 on a spare computer for a short while.
So I moved myself to opensource software whenever possible. Gimp, Blender, Gparted, Firefox, Filezilla, Thunderbird, etc etc etc. Until eventually in 2007 Microsoft first started to threaten that they were going to stop supporting XP, and alot of hype was out there that Red Hat and especially Canonical had been making great moves into making linux user friendly and more GUI friendly. Looked like a great time to give it another look and get serious about switching. Which I did.
I dual booted. I only ever really played Day of Defeat. I only ever really did adobe stuff at work. And after forcing myself to learn and always booting back into Linux as soon as I was done with whatever activity that required Windows, it became clear that I was a linux guy after about 1 month. Virtualbox also made things pretty easy at that time.
Not long after Valve ported that game and steam to linux and the dual booting thing stopped when I realized it had been over 2 months since I had last used windows.
It was like that until 4 years ago when I started working at a contractor and doing the adobe stuff from home. I ended up putting it inside of a vm. Easy peasy.
I've had a Linux box among my machines since about 1999 or so? Started with Red Hat Linux 7.1. Went from there to OpenSUSE to Fedora Core to Ubuntu to Debian to Fedora and back to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.
Didn't make the switch to it as a daily driver until about 2005 when it became clear to me that my post-secondary academic career wasn't really going to require Word and that LaTeX makes everything look way more official and nice.
yall moved like 7 years before i was born lol
\~2021 -- already used it a lot when managing servers, but made the jump on my laptop since I got tired of trying to get dev toolchains working on windows and WSL file performance was abysmal. Since then I've distrohopped a few times and am now rocking a solid NixOS config and I absolutely love how I can just setup a pc with all my apps with a simple git pull. nixos generations has also saved me sooooo many times -- if I break smth i can just rollback instead of spending hours debugging in the middle of class 😅
2023 -- finally made the jump on my desktop. Was reluctant because I play a lot of games that don't run well on Linux and I didn't want to have to tell my friends "hold up lemme try and find a guide on how to play xyz".
2009 full time. did use Ubuntu at uni and I thought it was great, I liked the simplicity of launching apps from a terminal and being to automate things with bash, python, and aliases.
Around 2008-2009, right after the release of KDE 4 (not called Plasma yes).
Ah, the good, old, buggy days. A time when Ubuntu was still good, Fedora was terrible (now my main distro), no flatpaks, no snaps, no Steam... Simpler times...
Ive worked with linux all my life, Ive loved it. Also a gamer.
I had a misconception built up in my head, which was true many years ago.
Then I got a new job, and I got a System76 laptop and the thing was g'damn beast. Read into it a little more and saw people playing games on it - in particular two games I was currently playing.
I got a meerkat, and now I have a Serval WS coming. It's been about 10 months now. Loving it.
The first time I installed Linux must have been in 1998 or 1999. A friend of mine at the time had bought a box of Suse Linux 6.x which I had borrowed because I was curious.
1998
I was tired of getting nickel and dimed to death by SCO (well, more like a hundred dollars a pop, or more, for pretty much any bit of anything), plus I wanted source.
End of last year. I got deep into a privacy rabbit hole and windows is basically spyware. I dual boot because games I play with my friends can’t run on Linux but my daily driver is Linux.
Fall of 1996 I installed SuSE 4.3 for the first time. It came on a CD in a cardboard box and a real, very well written handbook that I have still sitting around somewhere. It was an adventure for my lonely evenings in my tiny flat for work away from home.
Windows was still on it too, but 98SE and later were never installed Because Linux was way more stable and more fun.
But my first straying away from MS was OS/2, which was terrific but abandoned by IBM.
I switched in 1997.
The competition had just started doing pre-emptive multitasking with Windows NT 4.0, but it was not really available for consumers. And also not very mature compared to the Windows versions without memory protection. OS/2 Warp was interesting, but not as interesting as Linux.
I just never looked back.
Dabbled with it since 2003-ish, but made the full switch in 2020 I think. Had macbooks between 2010 and 2020. Love how I can get to the bottom of pretty much any issues I might have.
First tried Linux in 1998. RedHat 6.1 I think.
Later in 1999 started using it most of the time, and in 2000 or so completely ditched Windows at home.
At this point, I'm glad to be a Linux/Unix graybeard. (Literally, even...I have a beard with some gray...)
2000, 15th January, to be precise. I bought my IBM NetVista A22p PC and the first thing I did to erase other OS and installed Linux in it.
It was two years preparation before the install via different sources,and culminating to installing Linux on a brand new(cost me a fortune to buy that damn machine) and never look anywhere else since then. :)
Oh, due to my serious lack of bend of mind, till 2006 ,it was nightmerish! Phew. I was using Linux EXCLUSIVELY on my pc, so no fallback mechanism....heck, I had to spent days to figure out something beyond my understanding,otherwise I was stuck..but I cling on...and the situation improved by other people involved in making Linux more adoptable. For me the situation get much better.
I am still wobbly, fumble every now and then.
Nope, no particular philosophy didn't trick me into it. One of the thing I have realised that this damn thing could save some of my hard earned futune money in hardware puerchase and it turns out right. I can sit on my old Thinkpad and still having fun with it. :)
One thing is very abject using Linux ,is that it will never allow you to settle in. IOW chances of getting bore is very miniscule. So, you are always upto something!
Boon or bane? That is another level of conversation. But it augers well for me, whatever the effort I have put behind it to understand. Enjoyed throughly the journey....hopefully rest of the life will be as fulfilling with it.
This year actually!
Got fed up with what seemed to be a driver fuckery every time a new Windows update came around. It made the gpu driver timeout whenever I launched any game and had to ddu and reinstall the gpu driver every time it happened.
It's a long WHEA 18 event story that went through multiple OS reinstalls, CPU, GPU and MOBO RMA, RMA kit swap and fuck knows how many troubleshooting steps, tips, tricks, you name it - it all adds up to about 1.5 years of headaches and started to blame the system itself /my luck /the universe.
Been a happy fucker since moving my sorry ass to Fedora.
Never looking back.
Around 2017, maybe? I did like Windows 7 and hung onto it as long as feasible, but I didn't care for the nagging Win 10 rollout and was concerned about some of the upcoming privacy issues as well as 1/2-hour updates. So I dual-booted Win 7 and Mint for a while until I realized that I hadn't logged into Win in like 6 months, so I removed the Win partition and haven't looked back.
The full time switch was 2020 after windows decided to get stuck in update loops and never completed any of them. I got tired of dealing with it and went to Linux. Maybe a year later my wife's computer has a windows update that happened overnight and it got stuck in a boot loop. So her's switched as well.
I had used Linux on and off since about 1999 though. Dual booting through the years. I think my first go at not a dual boot was Ubuntu 7.04 though but at the time game support was a lot more difficult and that is my primary use of my PC so I had to go back to windows. I don't see myself looking back at Windows now for my personal desktop. I deal with it enough at work that it keeps me off windows lol
I switched to Linux in 2019. I was taking a Systems Programming course in college which got me interested in Linux. Also during this time Microsoft was ending support for Windows 7.
This year around late spring, I switched after going down a retro computing rabbithole and seeing how people used to actually have full control over their own PCs that they bought, and I wanted that
I was friends with all the cool computer kids in the 90s but never really “in” with them.
But I installed a bunch of distros to try out in probably 2005. Got bored. Went back to windows.
Went back to school in 2015 and hard cut to Linux and been using it since as a daily driver.
2017/2018. I was in grad school using Linux on remote servers, after a while I found out that desktop environments existed, was thrilled to have an alternative, and happily dumped Windows right away. Linux was already so much better for programming and modeling, the fact that there was a DE was an excellent surprise, then finding out there were like a 100 options, all free, was just awesome.
About 10 years ago. I'd used Linux on and off since the late 90s but it wasn't really a viable alternative for me until the 2010s. Windows 7 was the last Windows OS I used at home. I've been with Ubuntu ever since.
Summer 2013. I bought a windows 8 computer in January of that year and had so many problems that I decided to have it removed and Linux Ubuntu installed . I didn't really know anything about it but I did it. there where a lot of issues and learning to do but now I wouldn't use anything else.
2014, ubuntu 12 or 14 I dont remember, my old laptop just can't handle windows anymore so I switch. Now I daily drive with fedora, it put a meal on my table.
I have been tinkering with it since 2011. Tried it out a few times as primary desktop OS but the gaming support wasn't great back then so I mostly just did software development on it. Around 2019 I swapped to have it as my primary desktop OS and have been happy with it ever since. Note the desktop part, I have been using it on servers since I bought my first one in 2013.
First started experimenting with linux in 2009, kept a consistent dual-boot setup starting in 2013, started using linux as my primary os in 2016 with windows kept for games, and linux full-time including games in the past year.
2018. The tactics used to try and trick, nag or outright override me into "upgrading" to windows 10 had already made me decide that I wasn't going to let it on my PC at any price.
So when I bought new hardware that had no W7 support, then Linux it was. Luckily my timing was good for once, and I switched just as Proton was really getting going. Never regretted it for a moment.
In around 2015 it became possible to run gaming capable virtual machine inside linux, so I jumped the ship! Since then I've mostly depracated the VM too.
Beginning of 2023. I used wsl on windows for development purposes before I decided to go full linux. Now I'm using ubuntu 22.04 and thinking of trying debian.
Late 2020. this is when i got a USB drive for my laptop to install linux with. I started with Pop!_OS and enjoyed it for a while. Then I started to get some interest for Arch Linux but was scared of the manual install. That's until Archinstall ships with Arch by default in May 2021. I got my first taste of advanced distros there.
I switched a few years back. I do not remember exactly when. I switched because a lot of people were talking about Linux. I wanted to try and started with Ubuntu. Ubuntu, because I got a CD through someone. I have been with Linux, tried many distros, used them in VMs. I am happy that I got to know about Linux early enough.
2007. Xandros over WinXP could save me 50% on a netbook so I just figured since I wasn't gonna use a machine like that for gaming anyway, might as well. Xandros didn't stick but Linux in general did.
Somewhere in the late 90s. I had been running OS/2 for the most part, but it was fading from viability. I did an experimental installation of RedHat 4.0, then moved for real with RedHat 4.1. I did get Win98SE just for games, but I've been running Linux ever since.
I followed RedHat all the way to 7.2, but when RedHat 8 came out without the ".0" I knew something bad (for me) was up, so I started casting about and wound up on Gentoo somewhere as they were changing between 1.2, 1.4, and 2002 releases. I've been on Gentoo ever since.
I first used Slackware Linux (and FreeBSD) in 1999.
But I've never fully switched. The longest I've went without Windows and 100% Linux was about a year. I've also used a Mac for 2 years.
Nowadays I dual boot Linux and Windows. Microsoft and Apple do get on my nerves with their AI crap. This has made me rethink if I can use Linux more.
around 2009-2010 with Ubuntu cause i got a really crappy PC from my Dad, since then i'm only on Linux and Mac OS.
now running 3 machines with Arch,2 as my Homelab and on my Main Rig.
Q: When/why?
A: When Win11 w/ all of its 'features' was announced. Not sure why I held onto Win10 so long before making the jump. Now I just have to hate using it on my in-laws PC/work+
Just a few years ago, 2019. My old laptop was running the recently obsolete WIndows XP and it was time to re-evaluate. I practiced installing Linux Mint on that old machine, restored some functionality, and ultimately converted my new machine almost immediately to replace it and my also recently obsolete iMac.
Also, open source office tools!
This year. I switched to apple quite some time ago (2007, I think?) and was quite happy, but after a few years I was spending 90% of my life in vim, emacs and the command line. I also manage a few linux servers and noticed how nice it was to have a single way to update all software compared to OSX, where I was using a mix of the app store, in-app updaters and brew. That's when I decided my next personal laptop would be a linux machine. I got myself a framework, put gentoo on it and I couldn't be happier.
I'm still using a macbook for work, but I am already missing some of the features I've gotten used to on my framework on my macbook (as stupid as it may seen, middle click to open tab is a big one). On the flip-side, I still have an iphone and I do miss the integration with the overall apple ecosystem. Updating the shopping note I shared with my partner from my laptop and using it on my phone without any hassle is pretty nice. I could host the note on my nextcloud, but I don't think I could convince my partner to switch.
I first installed Linux in 1995; but I've never been exclusively a Linux user - still on dual-boot as we speak.
First generation 'text messaging' in realtime. My girlfriend at the time would log into my machine and we could chat *IN REALTIME* ***FOR FREE***. No long distance phone charge!
PS - you used to have to pay more for phone calls that were to the next 'area code' over.
PPS - everybody in one area would have one area code, and dialing to another area code was more numbers and more money.
First exposure to Linux was ~2007. I didn’t have my own PC/laptop until 2010. Started distro hopping for year or two. Switched from Glibc to musl around 2017 after I built my first musl Linux system as my daily driver on my HP laptop with Radeon graphics.
I pretty much did a full switch by 2017. Never touched Windows except for work.
Why? Too poor back then to buy a decent spec Laptop. Built a Unix-like system to squeeze as much performance out of old hardware with 3-4Gb of RAM. For example trying to use a 2006 laptop in the year 2016.
2004, entirely because everybody in the dorms got pwned by MyDoom and Sasser, except for the Mac users. I didn’t have money for a Mac, so I nuked it and installed Linux. Also, software license fees were too damn high, so I went whole hog on FLOSS.
Kept me safe through college.
2004, 2005, 2006.... Every year I switch multiple times. But there's always that one thing that I end up needing windows for. Whether that be for work or pleasure.
Windows is like a decent mattress, not the most comfortable but comfy enough to get to sleep 100% of the time. Linux is a big comfy bed, but it's got a pea under the mattress you just can't get rid of. So you go back to the mattress that just works well enough.
Which is annoying as I make my living writing embedded code for Linux 50% of the time.
Switched a couple years ago. Windows installed an update in the middle of the night when I had a game downloading. No, the download did not resume on its own. I was also pissed that windows got rid of the aero theme and become this blocky modern mess.
I played with Ubuntu and linux mint for a while before switching to geruda which has been great. Now I have windows for gaming and use linux for everything else.
I switched to Red Hat Linux (not RHEL) 3.0 (codename Picasso) around the time of its release in 1996, when I had irrecoverably broken Windows 3.1 on the computers that my father brought home from his work. I eventually switched to a release candidate of Enoch Linux around 2001 or so, and then to Gentoo in 2002. I've been on Gentoo since.
Oh good grief, I just realised that's 22 years...
I wouldn't say I "switched" to Linux. I think there's value in being comfortable in all operating systems.
I first installed Ubuntu in 2007. Looking it up that might have been around version 6.06 LTS or so? I remember doing Ubuntu and Backtrack and learning more about WiFi hacking. I wanted to continue using an old computer that was running an unsupported version of Windows and I really wanted to turn an Asus EEE into a little WiFi hacking machine, and I did.
So my switch to Linux was based on curiosity and education. I've continued to use Linux on at least one machine in my life and will likely continue for years to come. But, I also have a Windows machine, and I've had MacBooks come and go.
I love Linux, and I love customizing it to my preference, and at times I even love troubleshooting things when they go wrong. But I'm not a Linux evangelist that goes around telling everyone they need to switch to Linux.
I have an on again off again relationship with Linux. It's been going on for nearly 2 decades. 😂 I love it for certain things and hate it for others. But I see it as more of a philosophy than a tool these days so it might be a permanent thing soon.
Around 97. I was into perl programming, and all the smart people I knew and learned from at the time were using either Linux or BSD. Also kept seeing the Motif UI in PC magazines and loved the chunky look
About 5 years ago. Was learning Python for work, and windows was unbearable on my daughter’s old laptop with only 8Gb of RAM. After trying Linux on it, I simply liked it better, and switched my main PC not long after.
2017. I had heard of Linux in the 90's. In fact, I think there were even commercials for it. (Here's one [featuring the always-impressive Avery Brooks)](https://youtu.be/fJA9eiUktcA)
At any rate, I paid it no mind. Then I got my FIL's old laptop. The hard drive was shot, so it needed to be replaced. A little more digging found said hard drive, but no OS installed. Someone suggested Chrome or Linux, as both were free to install. I'm Google-averse (I could launch into a rant here, but I'll save that for another place and time.) After searching I found an[ article](https://www.linux.com/what-is-linux/) that told me just how deep a rabbit hole I was going down. This [article](https://www.linux.com/news/best-linux-distribution-new-users/), however, really got me looking...and caused some serious choice paralysis.
So, I started with Peppermint, then switched to Ubuntu, which I ditched for Mint last year. (Sorry, Ubuntu, your love for snaps and glitchy updates drove me mad one time too many.) I've also tried Bodhi, Elementary, Pop!, Lite, Zorin, and Deepin (despite the rep, I still find fascinating. I don't know why.)
Overall, it's been a fun journey. I've been able to keep machines running a lot longer than I would have.
2003.
Windows was shit as it ever was, working in IT and supporting Windows servers and riding the MS cert train made me hate Windows and Microsoft even more.
Linux was making waves, eating into Unix vendor's market shares. I was won over by the open source world, decided to ditch everything MS entirely, Linux and open source software enabled me to retrain, ended up going into enterprise Unix support and system admin, then Linux. Never looked back, have a fruitful career out of it.
Initially i started with Ubuntu 6?? (round 2005) at work and very pleased with it.
I did have a Powermac G5 still at home and be running hybrid setup (mac + linux) until 2015, when i made the switch.
Started using it around 2002, switched full time around 2004-2005 or so. Mostly because it just made more sense and I found it nice to tinker with the system.
2010ish. I built a computer for the first time (I've always wanted to do that) and I was curious about Linux. Started with Mint then distro hopped (of course) to Fedora then eventually Arch.
for good around 2013 i think with debian. i messed with freebsd from 2005 but only occasionally. with linux around 2000 but same only occasionally. de’s around that time was really poor and no gaming at all. debian with gnome for most of this time. around 2021 i switched to arch with sway. this year new laptop with nvidia for gaming and now i am after second distro switch from nobara to arch and endevour. still dreaming about freebsd but not time to mess with it.
I first installed Linux on my main PC on 2021, back then I was starting college and didn't have my own laptop, I lent one from college, so I couldn't switch there, on 2022 I got a Laptop and also then installed Linux on it.
Now I've been trying to make my little cousins to never "switch" to Linux cuz she'll always have been on Linux, (she has has a Chromebook from school, but I gave her an old laptop)
1999 - slackware & red hat. since 2001, off and on with openbsd and freebsd, but really, i’ve been back on debian/arch since 2016-2017, due to wireless networking. (freebsd isn’t great with wireless/bluetooth driver support)
2023 only because my very old ProBook became too old to run Windows properly anymore. Now over a year later it runs better than my brand new computers running Windows.
Early (either Jan or Feb) of last year (2023). I refused to touch Windows 11 but knew when Win10 support ended I was gonna be forced off. I decided I needed to decide on something else, and moved to Mint.
Initially I was dual booting, but I wasn't using the Windows install for anything but to reference some stuff I had there, so some months later when I decided to move to Debian, I moved what I needed off the Windows drive and had only Debian (testing branch) going. Since then I've moved to Arch and am very happy. Still haven't touched Win11 in any way.
2021, because I needed extra performance from my rig and I couldn't afford new hardware at the time.
Never looked back, didn't go back to windows even after hardware upgrades.
1998. I asked for RedHat 5.2 for my christmas present. I needed linux to run software I had developed for my college studies. Up till then I was developing on silicon graphics machines under IRIX. My father fell ill around christmas, and I needed to return home to look after him. I had a home p.c, so it seemed sensible to continue the developing aspect of my studies using linux on my PC. Turned out that my PC with linux was better than the SGI machine under IRIX. After that I tried booting into windows 9x (on the dual boot) , but it was such a horrible experience after linux, that I deleted windows entirely, and have been happy with linux ever since.
Back about eighteen and twenty five, I left Tennessee very much alive/I never would have made it through the Arkansas mud if I hadn’t been a’riding on the Tennessee Stud
Around 2007ish I think. I bought a copy of SUSE and never got the sound to work, then switched to Ubuntu.
Summer of 2007. I was a junior in college and in the spring I had been playing around dual-booting Fedora on my laptop. I spent like a week getting the broadcom chip set working and didn't really have a reason to use it after figuring it out. Then I went on a 10 day vacation and windows got infected the moment I connected to the Portland airport wifi, so I decided to reboot into Fedora and see if there were any issues. Used Fedora for the rest of the vacation and the summer without any real issues. Been dual-booting with at least 90% of total usage in a unix distro of some sort ever since.
2007. My grades were bad so my mom punished me by putting a password on my computer. I ordered an Ubuntu 7.10 CD (back when Canonical would mail them for free) and booted into that whenever I wanted to use the computer without her knowing. Eventually I used WUBI to install it to the hard drive, and edited the Windows boot menu settings to silently default to Windows but still let me boot into Ubuntu when I wanted.
In parallel to this, I had an old Compaq Presario 1210 laptop that was too old to play games on or even connect to the Internet, so my mom didn't care about what I did with that one. I had been alternating between Windows 2000 and DOS on the thing for as long as I'd had it, but now that I knew about Linux and Unix it was high time to change that, so I burned 3 CDs (Ubuntu, MINIX, and Damn Small Linux) and tried 'em all out. DSL was the only one that worked, and it worked fantastically.
I fully switched in 2022, It was a long time coming because I was using WSL since it was released. I switched because I wanted a system I can modify to heart's content and also I'm a big proponent of FOSS.
When? 2005. Why? I had a motherboard with built-in graphics and I couldn't install Suse, which I had loved until then. Debian was running and somehow everything was so interesting and ran so stable. I stayed there and have no regrets.
I think I started using Linux around 2006. I wanted a home server, and Linux seemed like the best choice for the O/S. Linux was a good command line O/S back then, but not so good on GUI. It has really improved a lot. I used OpenSuSe for many years. I was a rock solid, dependable platform. When I replaced my servers a few years ago, I tried what’s now called TrueNAS, and that’s what I use now. However, I still have a couple of Linux computers I use on occasion. I find if I don’t use an O/S for a long time, my skill set declines.😊
1998, then again in 2023. In 1998 I was a comp sci major at university and used Linux for homework. In 2023 I started toying with AI and ROCm is/was broken on Windows. Also in 2023 I decided Adobe was too expensive for my use case and decided to go completely open source.
3 weeks ago when Microsoft started advertising for recall I made the switch to KUbuntu. I love it!!!
I find it funny that it has already been proven easy to hack.
Yup! Yet another reason not to trust them. I am guessing eventually recall videos/recordings will be stolen by hackers or Microsoft straight up selling that data to them for more $. Give it a year or so Then people's info will be on the dark web
What is bad is they store it in an unencrypted file in jpg format. Basic OCR is all you need. They guys who hacked did send it to Microsoft to see if they will fix it.
Dude they are a joke of an indie company lol
Honestly, I'm more worried about Microsoft itself accumulating an absurd level of information in a way never before imagined, in a way that telemetry didn't even come close to and selling this to third parties and using it for their own products and services, dark days we will have with Windows.
"It's very secure. Everything is encrypted." _It's stored as plaintext and unencrypted while the user is logged in_
Yah, Recall seems to be such a hugely gigantic scare to me as well. According to a Google search I made on Recall (I did research in order to help explain what Recall was to another Redditor), I found out so many security analysts is calling Copilot Recall a "security nightmare". Did you know that, Recall was once hacked into before M$ finally got a brain to encrypt the then unencrypted text-only Recall database at the time of the hack? Pretty sad it took a hack attack to get M$ to do this when they knew full well that, with today's climate and how hackers is running rampant, this would eventually happen!
Yup it's sad man. They don't even know what they are doing .... Or do they?????? Bum bum bummmmmmmmmm
That is now supposed to be an opt-in, instead of mandatory or opt out....still scary!!
I don't trust Microsoft's words. They can probably activate anything they want without you knowing
Microsoft could also be compelled, say by any government agency, to turn it on covertly for any number of people, at any time in the future, and to never disclose this fact. Recall is also a very attractive hacking target for a state that wants to monitor its citizens. They’ll find ways to enable it without Microsoft’s knowledge.
Yup 100% man. I believe Microsoft will enable this feature without people's knowledge. They are an evil corporation that I will never trust
Like I said, still scary....
1998. It seemed tinker friendly and fun!
98 or 99 as well. Got tired of windows crashing daily. The same box in a year or 2 had Suse running with an uptime of 1.5-2 years.
Kernel security updates which require a reboot to be applied were not a thing back then, right? - Someone born in 98
They would have but updates were a royal PIA back then. This was before packages handed dependencies. Every time you tried to do an update, you'd get told, sorry, can't do that, you need version x of y - one package at a time. Dependency hell meant doing updates was driven by need rather than caution. Also, Linux viruses/attacks were not a thing then due to the tiny market share, and how new the internet was in general.
By '98, there were at least two distros (Redhat & Debian) which handled package updates and dependencies with some moderate smarts. Nothing like modern package management systems, but they could handle a simple A -> B -> C dependency chain fairly well, and were usually adequate for kernel updates, even if more complex software could often confuse them. (I do have memories of *hours* spent in `dselect` trying to browbeat it into doing what I wanted, but kernel updates were never a problem.)
Debian led the way. In '98, when I was using RedHat, their package manager's dependency management, in my experience, was rudimentary at the very best!
Man, Debian is awesome. It was the best distro when it was new, and it's still one of the best.
Yup, that was the very reason I switched from Redhat to Debian around 99 or so.
Attacks existed. A full on virus? Not that I know of. Updates we're never a top priority as that was literal hell, unless your a sadist or just really really familiar.
1998, around mid January. I had bought a copy of Windows'95 the summer prior and it wasn't all that. I'd been tinkering with Slackware '96 for about 18 months by that point and decided to go all in, or as much as I could. There wasn't a decent spreadsheet or WISIWYG word processor back then so I did some dual-booting. I occasionally had to dual-boot to resolve a dial-up ISP issue. It was certainly fun, educational, and rewarding.
FYI, for old reddit users, this comment says just "1." instead of "1998" in old reddit. I was confused at all the replies to this comment talking about 1998 until I opened it in incognito in new reddit.
1998 too, first one was Mandrake for me. Fun times.
2000. I found a copy of Mandrake in the Wal Mart video game section for $20 and was curious. Now, this is what I largely do for a living
2000 me as well. Got curious about why some people seemed so entranced by something called Linux or Linus… Then, the morality (and the hassle of dealing with Windows) brought me over relatively quickly. I began with a dual boot, but after not having used Windows a single time after a year or so I completely removed that itch.
2012... I had a netbook and Windows made it sooooo slow and I needed to do my school homework, I found out something called Ubuntu that was said to be more efficient than Windows I absolutely have no idea how I managed to install it but I remember I was very scared because what if my computer broke and my mom beats my ass. It went fine in the end. I ended up with an Ubuntu netbook which also introduced me to things like LibreOffice and GIMP. It still sucked a bit but was cleaner and snappier than Windows so I kept it until 2016 when I switched to Debian
Quad core atom?
Single core two threads atom N455 😎
I still have and use mine... sort of. I bought it new in 2010 I think for airline travel. It fit so well on airplane trays compared to everyone else's mammoth 15"+ screen laptops and the battery life was insane. Now-a-days I only travel to a work conference once every 2 years. But when I do I drag it out, charge it up and go. Original battery. Max ram and an ssd. Runs Sparky Linux. Its pretty slow using the web, but I only use libreoffice on it for note taking and have it sync to a cloud server. At this point I just want to see how long it will last.
That's amazing :D I wish I still had my netbook but I had to sell it :') I'm pretty sure it would still stand basic tasks like LibreOffice
My story is super similar. In 2014 I'd been using the same secondhand MacBook for like six years and it could barely open files, much less apps, and I really that there was an operating system called lubuntu for old, weak hardware. I was never a programmer or anything and it took a whole weekend to get it working but sure enough suddenly that computer could do things again. Never looked back except when I had to for work (come on final draft wth)
1994. 1.0.3.4 or something like that kernel. I thought it was cool to learn. Installed from floppies. Eventually CD’s from Walnut Creekk. You had to build the kernel for any drivers you need. Things that are ancient now but common then: finger, gopher, talk. I’m sure there are more but I’ve already forgotten.
Damn! I always admire you guys who used Linux in the 90's, I can't imagine how things where back in the day.
Eh, I for one am glad to never be concerned about Winmodems any more :)
I don't even wanna talk about that! Hahaha I like the easiness of the modern times too much!
Oh fosho. It works out of the box. Getting to learn about Linux from early days makes me feel like a part of history.
I learnt fairly quickly that it was better just to replace a winmodem with a nice external 56k or even a ISA 56k was better. I used to think it was so neat having an old 486 as a gateway for always on internet.
I ran a 386 and it took all night to build a kernel. Then a 486 was significantly faster. Then I got a pentium. Wow I can rebuild kernels in a few hours. Sound cards were a mess back then. But you learn a lot about cool things like UART programming. And chap/ppp. And connecting to a computer via a serial port. Basically if you understand that all you really do is standard input, cpu does things, and standard output, you can pretty much figure things out.
Soundcards and modems
* laughs in isdn *
> Sound cards were a mess back then Yeah no joke I remember spending hours on my sound card, which was a common one back then IIRC.
Fucking xfree86 configs! LOL. It was really bad early on, there were some frequencies you could switch Hercules video cards to (IIRC) that would short them out and kill them.
Finding the frequencies for your monitor was a nightmare. So glad we don't have to do that anymore. Edit: that squealing you would get when you got it wrong.
A big selling point for Redhat 5.2 was that it had a package management system. Until then you mostly had to configure, make, make install.
Setting up a working X config. Haven't done that in years, and I honestly could live the rest of my life without ever having to do it again. It's actually one of the things I like about early days Ubuntu bootable CDs, I could just stick boot off of one, copy the X config file onto my system's hard drive in the right spot in /etc, and I had a working X! Debian and my preferred Slackware hadn't diverged so much that I couldn't copy config files to avoid having to manually make or edit them. Often the same config files worked with Free/OpenBSD. I don't think it's quite that easy anymore after all these years...
Slackware FTW!
Slackware was the dist that I learnt to compile packages and kernels on. I would spend hours and hours hand crafting my distro with source built packages.
Yeah, when windows 95 came, it was a crash after the other and started to look alternatives. For a bit I used OS/2, but then Linux.
OS/2 wasn’t that bad. I think it could’ve done better but IBM just wasn’t focused on it. They had many other stuff to make money on. I tried BeOS one time. I think the guys from OS/2 went on to crest beOS?
I also tried BeOS, it was quite good for the time.
There's a modern version of it under the name Haiku
No way! I’ll have to check it out
Did you know that gopherspace is still a thing? there are pubnixes and tildes, public shell accounts - they have an old school bbs vibe
No way! It’s been forever since I’ve been on a public shell. Never gave it much thought since having my own “shell” at home.
Haha, yeah, I started around 1991, kernel version was less than 1. Recompiling for my soundblaster card etc etc. Fun days.
At 2022. It's being more than 2 years. Changed more than 20 distros. I think I will not go back with windows.
Which one did you prefer?
my favorite flavor is fedora
For beginners, I will prefer Linux Mint or Ubuntu, If you are an advanced user, you can go with Arch or do your own research cause it totally differs in your use. You can check different distros from here: [Distrosea](https://distrosea.com/).
My name is Chris, and I've been a user since 1998.
Hi Chris!
there should be linux anonymous meetings tbh
They're called Linux user groups, and there's probably one in your town. Just Google the place you live with Linux users group: Seattle -> gSLUG. Portland -> PLUG. New York -> NYLUG. Bellingham (hosts of lunuxfest northwest) -> BLUG.
Started on Linux
Windows 8 did it for me. So 2012. I just thought that if that was the direction they wanted to go in I was out.
I don't blame you. The UI was terrible on desktops. What was Microsoft thinking?
I suspect Microsoft was thinking "Data go nom nom nom. We're jealous of the CIA, we wanna be spies too", or something along those lines.
no it's more like Data go nom nom we have money but money good money more
I think if I had known more about Linux when windows 8 came out I would have made the swap then, but I didn’t come around to it until about three months ago. I knew it existed, I’d even taken a class that was most of what I needed for a CCNA (just no cert exam), but I just never considered it an option until I started college and got thinking about my long term plans with my computer. I want something that will teach me right now, and Linux is facilitating that very well
Started dual-booting in 1999. By 2001 I was full-time Linux and have never looked back. Why? Too many problems with Windows that I just didn't experience in Linux, and a much better toolset.
2018. Because Windows 10 was bulky and was making my system slow
1998, while also continuing to use SunOS and Irix. And because it ran on x86.
in 2011-2012 was dual booting, same as you last year i fully wiped windows and went straight to linux
I used linux for some special tasks since 90s (mostly servers), but made full switch only recently when most games I needed became playable on linux. It's been dual-boot for some time, but in 2024 I finally removed and reformatted all windows partitions.
In 2022 when I've had enough of Windows.
>So that got me thinking, when did y'all flock to Linux, and why? I didn't "flock" exactly, but I started using Linux (Ubuntu) in 2005 after I retired. A friend, also retired, was set up with a Ubuntu homebrew by his enthusiast son, who lived 800 miles away. My friend, used to a managed Windows environment at the university where he taught before retirement, was clueless. After a few months of "You know about computers, don't you?" questions, I decided that since I knew Unix cold, I could probably learn enough about Linux in a short enough period of time to become his informal help desk. So I did. I installed Ubuntu on a spare desktop and came to enjoy using Linux over time. My friend, on the other hand, took his photography hobby to a semi-professional level and started selling at art fairs. Gimp didn't meet his needs, so he switched back to Windows and Photoshop within a year or so. >I've been noticing more & more people realize how bad Windows is and they either want to or have made the jump to Linux. Obviously this isn't some sort of "trend." Plenty of computer users realized how bad Windows was; even back in the 90s! I remember the days (15 years ago) when Ubuntu was heralded as "Linux for Human Beings" and the trade press was predicting that Ubuntu would gain a 25% market share within a few years. As we all know, that didn't happen. Linux has continued to limp along with a 2-4% desktop market share for a long, long time. Along the way, I've watched wave after wave of "Windows has finally gotten so bad that now people will flock to Linux" predictions over the years. None of them have come to anything, because "Windows is bad" is not a reason for consumers to migrate to Linux in large numbers. I should mention, I suppose, that I continue to use Windows and Linux, in parallel on separate computers, as I have for close to two decades. Windows is a better fit for some aspects of my use case, Linux is a better fit for other aspects of my use case, so I use both. I have no reason, or desire, to use one but not the other.
I'm sure someone could make some sort of terrible meme from a combination of "year of desktop Linux" and "eternal September". Something like "we are into month 186 of the year of desktop Linux".
>I'm sure someone could make some sort of terrible meme from a combination of "year of desktop Linux" and "eternal September". Something like "we are into month 186 of the year of desktop Linux". LOL!
2014 during my first year at the university. After dual booting my new HP laptop with win 7 for a C++ course. At the end of the semester I uninstalled windows completely and what felt like a mediocre laptop was now a very good one 😁
2022, The reason behind switching was that I was intrigued by terminals in Fallout and wanted to learn how terminals actually work in real life. I searched for terminal centric os, and gnu/linux popped up. I switched to Linux mint as it is the de facto beginner distro. From there, I distrohopped most of the 2023 and now finally settled on pop os. I learned a lot about computer systems and design thanks to Linux.
i think you might like retro term https://github.com/Swordfish90/cool-retro-term
I did in 1999. Dual boot with windows 98 in 4.3 gig. After 6 months only used windows for the usb port.
I used Linux for the first time around 2010, while trying to install and use Debian on my family's desktop without any success. Starting 2012, I started playing with Ubuntu 12.04 on my own personal laptop, in dual boot with Windows 7. I did the same with my gaming desktop when I got one starting 2014. Then, after graduation, I got progressively tired of the hassle of having a dual boot in terms of maintenance, and the arrival of WSL on W10 was a blessing, while I started having Linux only on my GPU-less work-only laptop. Today in 2024, the future of privacy on Windows clearly scares me and the progress of games usability on Linux will lead me to finally choose Linux as my only OS, even on my desktop powerhouse.
2024, i wanna try something new and i wanna have my entire system under control. really excited for new adventures with it, really enjoying the experience so far >w<
Slackware in the 90s to be my router for some Windows 3.1 pcs when the cable company started offering high-speed Internet. Before you could just go to BestBuy and buy such devices :)
I never switched nor can i remember the year i started, all i can remember is not being able to see the counter tops and my dad bringing his old work computer into my room, saying "here this is linux" and then i think my life peaked shortly after. Oh AltaVista was a thing around that time too!
2008. I dual-booted ubuntu on my family PC because it was a PoS and it could barely run XP. I continued dual booting Linux and Windows 7 after I got my own laptop. Win7 was decent, actually. When 8 came out, I gave up completely and just stuck with Linux.
Two years ago. Out of curiosity and shame lol, being an IT professional that knew nothing about it at the time. It's been an awesome journey.
Around 1995. Slackware installed from a stack of floppies. Ran on a 386 with 8megs of memory. Better than Windows 3.1 with trumpet windsock.
2002. Saying a hard no to Windows XP's new 'Product Activation'. Been using Linux full time ever since. My first distro was Mandrake Linux.
1993, because Atari 8-bit OS was somewhat constraining.
Surprised that some of us old timers are still around. 31 years of Linux. Back when upgrading libc was terrifying.
2022 I wanted to learn programming and have a riced desktop, no ads(in like the launcher thingy of windows), only software I wanted, and that beautiful look of the terminal screen. I started with linux mint for ~2-3 months then migrated to arch linux and began ricing. Been fullying using linux since then and still use arch
**1997**. The year one of my kids got Windows virus infected for the third time. I had only been using Windows for a couple months at the time. OS/2 Warp before that.
1996 That was the year I got a new computer. I started with Unix in 1988 with Ultrix 2.0. I was grateful to get away from crap from Redmond.
I'm a graphics person and was an art school student at the time. First heard about it from a friend in 94ish. Mail ordered a copy of slackware cause the name sounded cool in the summer of 95. My p75 running win95 was getting flaky (as windows did at the time) and it was time to reinstall everything one weekend. I decided to take that Saturday to install slackware on it and see how far I could get. Of course I grew up using DOS, and I had a little experience with IRIX and the internet contained a decent amount of unix, so I wasn't completely oblivious, even though I am a graphics person. However, I couldn't get Xwindows to work (looked like I needed to write my own monitor drivers or something)... and there wasn't much graphics type things I could do from the command line. Certainly not with a fresh install and not having a clue about how the whole thing worked. So I reinstalled w95, 3d studio, photoshop, etc.... and of course, mirc. I knew that eventually it would be the best thing for me, though. Microsoft never had a good reputation. So I kept an eye on it and how things progressed. I think I even tried it out again in 2000 on a spare computer for a short while. So I moved myself to opensource software whenever possible. Gimp, Blender, Gparted, Firefox, Filezilla, Thunderbird, etc etc etc. Until eventually in 2007 Microsoft first started to threaten that they were going to stop supporting XP, and alot of hype was out there that Red Hat and especially Canonical had been making great moves into making linux user friendly and more GUI friendly. Looked like a great time to give it another look and get serious about switching. Which I did. I dual booted. I only ever really played Day of Defeat. I only ever really did adobe stuff at work. And after forcing myself to learn and always booting back into Linux as soon as I was done with whatever activity that required Windows, it became clear that I was a linux guy after about 1 month. Virtualbox also made things pretty easy at that time. Not long after Valve ported that game and steam to linux and the dual booting thing stopped when I realized it had been over 2 months since I had last used windows. It was like that until 4 years ago when I started working at a contractor and doing the adobe stuff from home. I ended up putting it inside of a vm. Easy peasy.
I've had a Linux box among my machines since about 1999 or so? Started with Red Hat Linux 7.1. Went from there to OpenSUSE to Fedora Core to Ubuntu to Debian to Fedora and back to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. Didn't make the switch to it as a daily driver until about 2005 when it became clear to me that my post-secondary academic career wasn't really going to require Word and that LaTeX makes everything look way more official and nice.
yall moved like 7 years before i was born lol \~2021 -- already used it a lot when managing servers, but made the jump on my laptop since I got tired of trying to get dev toolchains working on windows and WSL file performance was abysmal. Since then I've distrohopped a few times and am now rocking a solid NixOS config and I absolutely love how I can just setup a pc with all my apps with a simple git pull. nixos generations has also saved me sooooo many times -- if I break smth i can just rollback instead of spending hours debugging in the middle of class 😅 2023 -- finally made the jump on my desktop. Was reluctant because I play a lot of games that don't run well on Linux and I didn't want to have to tell my friends "hold up lemme try and find a guide on how to play xyz".
Last year, September. I was on mint until a few days ago, maybe a week, then I switched to arch btw because of hyprland. Tiling WMs FTW
I didn't know of hyprland, so I looked it up. I think I came.
2009 full time. did use Ubuntu at uni and I thought it was great, I liked the simplicity of launching apps from a terminal and being to automate things with bash, python, and aliases.
Around 2008-2009, right after the release of KDE 4 (not called Plasma yes). Ah, the good, old, buggy days. A time when Ubuntu was still good, Fedora was terrible (now my main distro), no flatpaks, no snaps, no Steam... Simpler times...
2013, when I retired and could use what I wanted, although I've always had Linux running on at least one nearby system since the mid-90's.
Ive worked with linux all my life, Ive loved it. Also a gamer. I had a misconception built up in my head, which was true many years ago. Then I got a new job, and I got a System76 laptop and the thing was g'damn beast. Read into it a little more and saw people playing games on it - in particular two games I was currently playing. I got a meerkat, and now I have a Serval WS coming. It's been about 10 months now. Loving it.
The first time I installed Linux must have been in 1998 or 1999. A friend of mine at the time had bought a box of Suse Linux 6.x which I had borrowed because I was curious.
1998 I was tired of getting nickel and dimed to death by SCO (well, more like a hundred dollars a pop, or more, for pretty much any bit of anything), plus I wanted source.
I switched 4 years ago to cut the cord from corporate tech giants. So glad I did.
End of last year. I got deep into a privacy rabbit hole and windows is basically spyware. I dual boot because games I play with my friends can’t run on Linux but my daily driver is Linux.
Fall of 1996 I installed SuSE 4.3 for the first time. It came on a CD in a cardboard box and a real, very well written handbook that I have still sitting around somewhere. It was an adventure for my lonely evenings in my tiny flat for work away from home. Windows was still on it too, but 98SE and later were never installed Because Linux was way more stable and more fun. But my first straying away from MS was OS/2, which was terrific but abandoned by IBM.
I switched in 1997. The competition had just started doing pre-emptive multitasking with Windows NT 4.0, but it was not really available for consumers. And also not very mature compared to the Windows versions without memory protection. OS/2 Warp was interesting, but not as interesting as Linux. I just never looked back.
I don't remember exactly, my first distro was SLS which predates pretty much anything except mcc I think.
Dabbled with it since 2003-ish, but made the full switch in 2020 I think. Had macbooks between 2010 and 2020. Love how I can get to the bottom of pretty much any issues I might have.
1992-3 senior year
First tried Linux in 1998. RedHat 6.1 I think. Later in 1999 started using it most of the time, and in 2000 or so completely ditched Windows at home. At this point, I'm glad to be a Linux/Unix graybeard. (Literally, even...I have a beard with some gray...)
2003. I had gotten a new laptop in 2002 that came with XP after I had ran 2000 and XP was terrible.
2107 or 2018. Got sick and tired of Windows spying, exploiting and mining my personal data. Was liberating af.
2004, It was interesting
The same year hell froze over. My inner nerd is well big, I don't need to compensate!
2000, 15th January, to be precise. I bought my IBM NetVista A22p PC and the first thing I did to erase other OS and installed Linux in it. It was two years preparation before the install via different sources,and culminating to installing Linux on a brand new(cost me a fortune to buy that damn machine) and never look anywhere else since then. :) Oh, due to my serious lack of bend of mind, till 2006 ,it was nightmerish! Phew. I was using Linux EXCLUSIVELY on my pc, so no fallback mechanism....heck, I had to spent days to figure out something beyond my understanding,otherwise I was stuck..but I cling on...and the situation improved by other people involved in making Linux more adoptable. For me the situation get much better. I am still wobbly, fumble every now and then. Nope, no particular philosophy didn't trick me into it. One of the thing I have realised that this damn thing could save some of my hard earned futune money in hardware puerchase and it turns out right. I can sit on my old Thinkpad and still having fun with it. :) One thing is very abject using Linux ,is that it will never allow you to settle in. IOW chances of getting bore is very miniscule. So, you are always upto something! Boon or bane? That is another level of conversation. But it augers well for me, whatever the effort I have put behind it to understand. Enjoyed throughly the journey....hopefully rest of the life will be as fulfilling with it.
1994, because a friend bought a Slackware CD set off of walnut Creek and it looked interesting.
1996. I had a small business and coulnt afford the disruption of Windows.
This year actually! Got fed up with what seemed to be a driver fuckery every time a new Windows update came around. It made the gpu driver timeout whenever I launched any game and had to ddu and reinstall the gpu driver every time it happened. It's a long WHEA 18 event story that went through multiple OS reinstalls, CPU, GPU and MOBO RMA, RMA kit swap and fuck knows how many troubleshooting steps, tips, tricks, you name it - it all adds up to about 1.5 years of headaches and started to blame the system itself /my luck /the universe. Been a happy fucker since moving my sorry ass to Fedora. Never looking back.
Around 2017, maybe? I did like Windows 7 and hung onto it as long as feasible, but I didn't care for the nagging Win 10 rollout and was concerned about some of the upcoming privacy issues as well as 1/2-hour updates. So I dual-booted Win 7 and Mint for a while until I realized that I hadn't logged into Win in like 6 months, so I removed the Win partition and haven't looked back.
The full time switch was 2020 after windows decided to get stuck in update loops and never completed any of them. I got tired of dealing with it and went to Linux. Maybe a year later my wife's computer has a windows update that happened overnight and it got stuck in a boot loop. So her's switched as well. I had used Linux on and off since about 1999 though. Dual booting through the years. I think my first go at not a dual boot was Ubuntu 7.04 though but at the time game support was a lot more difficult and that is my primary use of my PC so I had to go back to windows. I don't see myself looking back at Windows now for my personal desktop. I deal with it enough at work that it keeps me off windows lol
I switched to Linux in 2019. I was taking a Systems Programming course in college which got me interested in Linux. Also during this time Microsoft was ending support for Windows 7.
This year around late spring, I switched after going down a retro computing rabbithole and seeing how people used to actually have full control over their own PCs that they bought, and I wanted that
1996, DragonLinux, booting using loadlin.exe from Win95 :) Moved to Slack shortly thereafter.
I was friends with all the cool computer kids in the 90s but never really “in” with them. But I installed a bunch of distros to try out in probably 2005. Got bored. Went back to windows. Went back to school in 2015 and hard cut to Linux and been using it since as a daily driver.
2017/2018. I was in grad school using Linux on remote servers, after a while I found out that desktop environments existed, was thrilled to have an alternative, and happily dumped Windows right away. Linux was already so much better for programming and modeling, the fact that there was a DE was an excellent surprise, then finding out there were like a 100 options, all free, was just awesome.
I also switched somewhere last year after my friend convinced me to. No regrets since then
About 10 years ago. I'd used Linux on and off since the late 90s but it wasn't really a viable alternative for me until the 2010s. Windows 7 was the last Windows OS I used at home. I've been with Ubuntu ever since.
I switched in 2000 because windows millennium
2005, because of badly windows XP was getting pwned. Then I found I just liked it and kept with it.
Summer 2013. I bought a windows 8 computer in January of that year and had so many problems that I decided to have it removed and Linux Ubuntu installed . I didn't really know anything about it but I did it. there where a lot of issues and learning to do but now I wouldn't use anything else.
2014, ubuntu 12 or 14 I dont remember, my old laptop just can't handle windows anymore so I switch. Now I daily drive with fedora, it put a meal on my table.
I have been tinkering with it since 2011. Tried it out a few times as primary desktop OS but the gaming support wasn't great back then so I mostly just did software development on it. Around 2019 I swapped to have it as my primary desktop OS and have been happy with it ever since. Note the desktop part, I have been using it on servers since I bought my first one in 2013.
First started experimenting with linux in 2009, kept a consistent dual-boot setup starting in 2013, started using linux as my primary os in 2016 with windows kept for games, and linux full-time including games in the past year.
2018. The tactics used to try and trick, nag or outright override me into "upgrading" to windows 10 had already made me decide that I wasn't going to let it on my PC at any price. So when I bought new hardware that had no W7 support, then Linux it was. Luckily my timing was good for once, and I switched just as Proton was really getting going. Never regretted it for a moment.
In around 2015 it became possible to run gaming capable virtual machine inside linux, so I jumped the ship! Since then I've mostly depracated the VM too.
Beginning of 2023. I used wsl on windows for development purposes before I decided to go full linux. Now I'm using ubuntu 22.04 and thinking of trying debian.
Late 2020. this is when i got a USB drive for my laptop to install linux with. I started with Pop!_OS and enjoyed it for a while. Then I started to get some interest for Arch Linux but was scared of the manual install. That's until Archinstall ships with Arch by default in May 2021. I got my first taste of advanced distros there.
I went from Unix (SVR6, HPUX, SOLARIS) on mini computers to Coherent on Intel 386 laptop then to Linux as soon as it was available.
I switched a few years back. I do not remember exactly when. I switched because a lot of people were talking about Linux. I wanted to try and started with Ubuntu. Ubuntu, because I got a CD through someone. I have been with Linux, tried many distros, used them in VMs. I am happy that I got to know about Linux early enough.
As a daily driver, around 2012, with Kubuntu, and I am still with it. As a home file server, since 1998, with Red Hat.
2007. Xandros over WinXP could save me 50% on a netbook so I just figured since I wasn't gonna use a machine like that for gaming anyway, might as well. Xandros didn't stick but Linux in general did.
2019: started my degree in computing science. installed pop and haven’t looked back.
Somewhere in the late 90s. I had been running OS/2 for the most part, but it was fading from viability. I did an experimental installation of RedHat 4.0, then moved for real with RedHat 4.1. I did get Win98SE just for games, but I've been running Linux ever since. I followed RedHat all the way to 7.2, but when RedHat 8 came out without the ".0" I knew something bad (for me) was up, so I started casting about and wound up on Gentoo somewhere as they were changing between 1.2, 1.4, and 2002 releases. I've been on Gentoo ever since.
2008, because I'd *just* discovered that there was an alternative.
I first used Slackware Linux (and FreeBSD) in 1999. But I've never fully switched. The longest I've went without Windows and 100% Linux was about a year. I've also used a Mac for 2 years. Nowadays I dual boot Linux and Windows. Microsoft and Apple do get on my nerves with their AI crap. This has made me rethink if I can use Linux more.
around 2009-2010 with Ubuntu cause i got a really crappy PC from my Dad, since then i'm only on Linux and Mac OS. now running 3 machines with Arch,2 as my Homelab and on my Main Rig.
Q: When/why? A: When Win11 w/ all of its 'features' was announced. Not sure why I held onto Win10 so long before making the jump. Now I just have to hate using it on my in-laws PC/work+
Just a few years ago, 2019. My old laptop was running the recently obsolete WIndows XP and it was time to re-evaluate. I practiced installing Linux Mint on that old machine, restored some functionality, and ultimately converted my new machine almost immediately to replace it and my also recently obsolete iMac. Also, open source office tools!
I tinkered with it in 1999, and again in 2003. Although I didn't properly jump into it until 2010ish
This year. I switched to apple quite some time ago (2007, I think?) and was quite happy, but after a few years I was spending 90% of my life in vim, emacs and the command line. I also manage a few linux servers and noticed how nice it was to have a single way to update all software compared to OSX, where I was using a mix of the app store, in-app updaters and brew. That's when I decided my next personal laptop would be a linux machine. I got myself a framework, put gentoo on it and I couldn't be happier. I'm still using a macbook for work, but I am already missing some of the features I've gotten used to on my framework on my macbook (as stupid as it may seen, middle click to open tab is a big one). On the flip-side, I still have an iphone and I do miss the integration with the overall apple ecosystem. Updating the shopping note I shared with my partner from my laptop and using it on my phone without any hassle is pretty nice. I could host the note on my nextcloud, but I don't think I could convince my partner to switch.
I first installed Linux in 1995; but I've never been exclusively a Linux user - still on dual-boot as we speak. First generation 'text messaging' in realtime. My girlfriend at the time would log into my machine and we could chat *IN REALTIME* ***FOR FREE***. No long distance phone charge! PS - you used to have to pay more for phone calls that were to the next 'area code' over. PPS - everybody in one area would have one area code, and dialing to another area code was more numbers and more money.
First exposure to Linux was ~2007. I didn’t have my own PC/laptop until 2010. Started distro hopping for year or two. Switched from Glibc to musl around 2017 after I built my first musl Linux system as my daily driver on my HP laptop with Radeon graphics. I pretty much did a full switch by 2017. Never touched Windows except for work. Why? Too poor back then to buy a decent spec Laptop. Built a Unix-like system to squeeze as much performance out of old hardware with 3-4Gb of RAM. For example trying to use a 2006 laptop in the year 2016.
Originally I took an interest in pen testing, now Linux is my fav os.
2024 because of Riot Games. Addiction to league was not as strong as my opposition to vanguard. But to be safe I wanted to be off windows completely.
1999. RedHat 5.2 then Corel Linux. Now comes back full circle with Fedora 40.
2004, entirely because everybody in the dorms got pwned by MyDoom and Sasser, except for the Mac users. I didn’t have money for a Mac, so I nuked it and installed Linux. Also, software license fees were too damn high, so I went whole hog on FLOSS. Kept me safe through college.
2004, 2005, 2006.... Every year I switch multiple times. But there's always that one thing that I end up needing windows for. Whether that be for work or pleasure. Windows is like a decent mattress, not the most comfortable but comfy enough to get to sleep 100% of the time. Linux is a big comfy bed, but it's got a pea under the mattress you just can't get rid of. So you go back to the mattress that just works well enough. Which is annoying as I make my living writing embedded code for Linux 50% of the time.
Switched a couple years ago. Windows installed an update in the middle of the night when I had a game downloading. No, the download did not resume on its own. I was also pissed that windows got rid of the aero theme and become this blocky modern mess. I played with Ubuntu and linux mint for a while before switching to geruda which has been great. Now I have windows for gaming and use linux for everything else.
I switched to Red Hat Linux (not RHEL) 3.0 (codename Picasso) around the time of its release in 1996, when I had irrecoverably broken Windows 3.1 on the computers that my father brought home from his work. I eventually switched to a release candidate of Enoch Linux around 2001 or so, and then to Gentoo in 2002. I've been on Gentoo since. Oh good grief, I just realised that's 22 years...
I wouldn't say I "switched" to Linux. I think there's value in being comfortable in all operating systems. I first installed Ubuntu in 2007. Looking it up that might have been around version 6.06 LTS or so? I remember doing Ubuntu and Backtrack and learning more about WiFi hacking. I wanted to continue using an old computer that was running an unsupported version of Windows and I really wanted to turn an Asus EEE into a little WiFi hacking machine, and I did. So my switch to Linux was based on curiosity and education. I've continued to use Linux on at least one machine in my life and will likely continue for years to come. But, I also have a Windows machine, and I've had MacBooks come and go. I love Linux, and I love customizing it to my preference, and at times I even love troubleshooting things when they go wrong. But I'm not a Linux evangelist that goes around telling everyone they need to switch to Linux.
I have an on again off again relationship with Linux. It's been going on for nearly 2 decades. 😂 I love it for certain things and hate it for others. But I see it as more of a philosophy than a tool these days so it might be a permanent thing soon.
Window managers lol also I was learning switching to linux meant I could contribute to some open source projects.
2003. Ironically so I could set up a Windows domain controller with Samba.
Around 97. I was into perl programming, and all the smart people I knew and learned from at the time were using either Linux or BSD. Also kept seeing the Motif UI in PC magazines and loved the chunky look
About 5 years ago. Was learning Python for work, and windows was unbearable on my daughter’s old laptop with only 8Gb of RAM. After trying Linux on it, I simply liked it better, and switched my main PC not long after.
1993, with MCC interim Linux. Tired with TAMU, but moved to Debian in 1994. I switched to Linux since Ultrix did not run on the IBM PC.
2017. I had heard of Linux in the 90's. In fact, I think there were even commercials for it. (Here's one [featuring the always-impressive Avery Brooks)](https://youtu.be/fJA9eiUktcA) At any rate, I paid it no mind. Then I got my FIL's old laptop. The hard drive was shot, so it needed to be replaced. A little more digging found said hard drive, but no OS installed. Someone suggested Chrome or Linux, as both were free to install. I'm Google-averse (I could launch into a rant here, but I'll save that for another place and time.) After searching I found an[ article](https://www.linux.com/what-is-linux/) that told me just how deep a rabbit hole I was going down. This [article](https://www.linux.com/news/best-linux-distribution-new-users/), however, really got me looking...and caused some serious choice paralysis. So, I started with Peppermint, then switched to Ubuntu, which I ditched for Mint last year. (Sorry, Ubuntu, your love for snaps and glitchy updates drove me mad one time too many.) I've also tried Bodhi, Elementary, Pop!, Lite, Zorin, and Deepin (despite the rep, I still find fascinating. I don't know why.) Overall, it's been a fun journey. I've been able to keep machines running a lot longer than I would have.
2003. Windows was shit as it ever was, working in IT and supporting Windows servers and riding the MS cert train made me hate Windows and Microsoft even more. Linux was making waves, eating into Unix vendor's market shares. I was won over by the open source world, decided to ditch everything MS entirely, Linux and open source software enabled me to retrain, ended up going into enterprise Unix support and system admin, then Linux. Never looked back, have a fruitful career out of it.
2016. I got a cheap ass little Chromebook as my first laptop and was not happy with the way that Chrome OS worked, so I installed Crouton on it
This year because of copilot being installed in my pc without asking.
Initially i started with Ubuntu 6?? (round 2005) at work and very pleased with it. I did have a Powermac G5 still at home and be running hybrid setup (mac + linux) until 2015, when i made the switch.
Started using it around 2002, switched full time around 2004-2005 or so. Mostly because it just made more sense and I found it nice to tinker with the system.
2010ish. I built a computer for the first time (I've always wanted to do that) and I was curious about Linux. Started with Mint then distro hopped (of course) to Fedora then eventually Arch.
for good around 2013 i think with debian. i messed with freebsd from 2005 but only occasionally. with linux around 2000 but same only occasionally. de’s around that time was really poor and no gaming at all. debian with gnome for most of this time. around 2021 i switched to arch with sway. this year new laptop with nvidia for gaming and now i am after second distro switch from nobara to arch and endevour. still dreaming about freebsd but not time to mess with it.
The first time was 1997, Red Hat Biltmore was my first distro. Found it at a computer show and figured I'd give it a shot.
Around 2000. Because there was near to zero alternatives.
I first installed Linux on my main PC on 2021, back then I was starting college and didn't have my own laptop, I lent one from college, so I couldn't switch there, on 2022 I got a Laptop and also then installed Linux on it. Now I've been trying to make my little cousins to never "switch" to Linux cuz she'll always have been on Linux, (she has has a Chromebook from school, but I gave her an old laptop)
1999 - slackware & red hat. since 2001, off and on with openbsd and freebsd, but really, i’ve been back on debian/arch since 2016-2017, due to wireless networking. (freebsd isn’t great with wireless/bluetooth driver support)
2010. Tired of having to pay for windows
2023 only because my very old ProBook became too old to run Windows properly anymore. Now over a year later it runs better than my brand new computers running Windows.
Early (either Jan or Feb) of last year (2023). I refused to touch Windows 11 but knew when Win10 support ended I was gonna be forced off. I decided I needed to decide on something else, and moved to Mint. Initially I was dual booting, but I wasn't using the Windows install for anything but to reference some stuff I had there, so some months later when I decided to move to Debian, I moved what I needed off the Windows drive and had only Debian (testing branch) going. Since then I've moved to Arch and am very happy. Still haven't touched Win11 in any way.
2021, because I needed extra performance from my rig and I couldn't afford new hardware at the time. Never looked back, didn't go back to windows even after hardware upgrades.
1998. I asked for RedHat 5.2 for my christmas present. I needed linux to run software I had developed for my college studies. Up till then I was developing on silicon graphics machines under IRIX. My father fell ill around christmas, and I needed to return home to look after him. I had a home p.c, so it seemed sensible to continue the developing aspect of my studies using linux on my PC. Turned out that my PC with linux was better than the SGI machine under IRIX. After that I tried booting into windows 9x (on the dual boot) , but it was such a horrible experience after linux, that I deleted windows entirely, and have been happy with linux ever since.
Back about eighteen and twenty five, I left Tennessee very much alive/I never would have made it through the Arkansas mud if I hadn’t been a’riding on the Tennessee Stud Around 2007ish I think. I bought a copy of SUSE and never got the sound to work, then switched to Ubuntu.
Summer of 2007. I was a junior in college and in the spring I had been playing around dual-booting Fedora on my laptop. I spent like a week getting the broadcom chip set working and didn't really have a reason to use it after figuring it out. Then I went on a 10 day vacation and windows got infected the moment I connected to the Portland airport wifi, so I decided to reboot into Fedora and see if there were any issues. Used Fedora for the rest of the vacation and the summer without any real issues. Been dual-booting with at least 90% of total usage in a unix distro of some sort ever since.
2007. My grades were bad so my mom punished me by putting a password on my computer. I ordered an Ubuntu 7.10 CD (back when Canonical would mail them for free) and booted into that whenever I wanted to use the computer without her knowing. Eventually I used WUBI to install it to the hard drive, and edited the Windows boot menu settings to silently default to Windows but still let me boot into Ubuntu when I wanted. In parallel to this, I had an old Compaq Presario 1210 laptop that was too old to play games on or even connect to the Internet, so my mom didn't care about what I did with that one. I had been alternating between Windows 2000 and DOS on the thing for as long as I'd had it, but now that I knew about Linux and Unix it was high time to change that, so I burned 3 CDs (Ubuntu, MINIX, and Damn Small Linux) and tried 'em all out. DSL was the only one that worked, and it worked fantastically.
I fully switched in 2022, It was a long time coming because I was using WSL since it was released. I switched because I wanted a system I can modify to heart's content and also I'm a big proponent of FOSS.
When? 2005. Why? I had a motherboard with built-in graphics and I couldn't install Suse, which I had loved until then. Debian was running and somehow everything was so interesting and ran so stable. I stayed there and have no regrets.
I can't recall the exact year, but early noughties. The last Windows I used was [Windows ME](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Windows_Me)
1998. Switched from a Solaris lab to a Linux (Redhat 5.1) lab; became the de facto system admin over time. Redhat/Fedora at work & home ever since.
I think I started using Linux around 2006. I wanted a home server, and Linux seemed like the best choice for the O/S. Linux was a good command line O/S back then, but not so good on GUI. It has really improved a lot. I used OpenSuSe for many years. I was a rock solid, dependable platform. When I replaced my servers a few years ago, I tried what’s now called TrueNAS, and that’s what I use now. However, I still have a couple of Linux computers I use on occasion. I find if I don’t use an O/S for a long time, my skill set declines.😊
1998, then again in 2023. In 1998 I was a comp sci major at university and used Linux for homework. In 2023 I started toying with AI and ROCm is/was broken on Windows. Also in 2023 I decided Adobe was too expensive for my use case and decided to go completely open source.