Linux

Back when the world was young, I had to produce a fairly large chunk of documentation which I started to write in MS Word 2.0 (which ran in Windows 3.11 or Windows for Workgroups).

However, at around 100 pages, I started to have trouble with file corruption. So since the company I worked with had contacts with Microsoft, I got in touch with them. "yes that's a known bug, there's a new version on this FTP site" (we were in the nascent ISP business).

So I got Word 2.0c. Which promptly crapped all over my document. "Oh, yeah, I guess the bug isn't fixed then".

Around the same time, a coworker had been telling me about those guys who were busy writing a Unix from scratch (hah, so silly) and who had, already gotten a usable and stable system (wait, really? cool!). So I grabbed a copy and tested that. It ran fine (it did help that I already knew a bit of Unix). And I did my document there, I don't remember in what, if it was LaTeX or Applixware (maybe that came later).

Since then, Linux has always been on my desktop, with Windows coming and going on a secondary disk or partition, mostly relegated to the running of games.

I had known what Linux was but I never really was interested in finding out what it was. That was, until, 2021 came around and I became more privacy conscious. Learning more about Open Source software and it's philosophy, switching completely to FOSS software (besides ROM) on my phone and then slowly looking into Linux. I was fascinated by it, this wholly new world as it seemed to me... ready to explore and learn so much from. Of course, someone who's used windows most of his life will definitely think of it as a challenge to learn to use Linux and adapt to it. I started supporting and using more and more OSS and loved it, so naturally I also had became a bit more interested in Linux. After I became privacy conscious, I also wanted to get away from Big Tech and I already hated using Windows by that point. That was because I've had a low end PC most of my life, I stuck around with Windows 7 until 2019 where it became EOL and I had to switch to Windows 10. It was an awful experience, running windows 10 on older and low end hardware.

Then came 2022, I had a new upgraded system and it was more mid-range than low-end now. I started using Linux in VMs and learnt more and more about it, I tried to switch full time but couldn't because of a few things that I just cannot live without. Truth be told I'm still using Windows, there's just one thing holding me back and all other things I've either adapted to, learnt or have found an alternative for. I know some people will hurl insults at me for saying I dislike Big Tech but also use Windows and call myself privacy conscious but It is what it is. I use Linux part-time in VMs and I really enjoy it. As soon as that use case is covered, I'll be making a full switch to Linux.

Apologies if this went a little off-topic haha, couldn't help myself I'm afraid

I worked with Unix before Windows was a thing. I've worked on windows, saw what a shitshot it was (and still is), and work with Linux instead. I do have Windows PCs at the lab for some renitent software, too, but it is always a step backwards when it comes to data procession.

Windows 10. When your OS no longer respects your choices and you have to fight it every minute, there is something wrong. The creeping invasions on privacy have only cemented my use of Linux

Truthfully, I'm not sure if I would have ever switched over if Microsoft kept the Windows 7 paradigm. But I started my search for alternatives when Windows 8 - already too adventurous for me - came with the computer I bought.

Towards the end of my time using Windows 10 as my primary OS, the realization that the UI is not an inherent component of the OS sealed the deal. As a Windows 2000 fan, I fell in love with the way Chicago95 Debian replicated the look and stability that I had sorely missed.

one too many BSOD
this was 2005 ish

The desire to learn something beyond DOS, beyond just BBS', beyond RIME and FIDOnet email, wanting a UNIX like operating system that was like what I had at university, to be able to natively run talk, ytalk, IRC, ICB, Gopher, FTP, and NNTP.

ADHD, and Pablo Vazquez from Blender.

Linux is foss

and gnome looks neat!

Back in the distant past of 2008, a RuneScape player by the name of Icedpizza thought my complaints about driver problems on older hardware would be easily solved by this incredible thing I'd never heard of called Ubuntu. Downloaded 8.04 Hardy Heron and my life has never been the same since.

Cost and price ..... I could never afford much in terms of tech purchases 20 years ago.

Always collected second hand systems, first learned to find and use cracked windows copies, then when that got too complicated and difficult, found Linux and have never looked back. The amount of money I've saved not to paying for proprietary software, went into buying better hardware that I used to install Linux and OSS software.

Certain games wouldn't run in Windows, but ran perfectly fine on Linux. This was the tipping point for me to fully switch to Linux. Gaming never been so smooth and pleasant for me as it is on Linux now. No more random crashes, driver shit, etc.

My OS, shipped with the PC, became slow.

Sometime in the late 2000s. Bought a used netbook from someone and didn't know it had ubuntu on it.

Back in the day I was heavily invested in microsofts ecosystem,Until they killed windows phone. At the time it really hurt cause I loved the platform after that I grew resentful if Microsoft. My uncle gave my sister an old laptop and she gave it to me for uni, the thing. Didn't even run windows 10 right so i tried Ubuntu on it and it worked perfectly. I used that laptop until it died. Then I installed Ubuntu on an external hard drive and booted it on my unis pcs. Then my sister gave me her dell latitude and I installed ubuntu on it and have loved every single second of it

My interest started in my physics classes. They teach you the basics of Linux since it gets used for simulations and solving other math problems as well. I’m not 100% sure why, but i remember not even finding windows versions of some software that we used. I think it’s connected to supercomputers almost exclusively running Linux, and I had a couple of professors that use them.

Two friends in college recommened it while I was sick of Windows bloat/tracking & setting up programming tools seemed a lot easier

I've been using Linux for something like 27 years, I wouldn't say evangelical or particularly obsessed.

I started using it because some of the guys showing up to my late 90's LAN parties were dual booting Slackware it and it had cool looking boot up messages compared to DOS or Windows at the time. The whole idea of dual booting operating systems was pretty damn wild to me at the time too.

After a while it became obvious to me that Slackware '96 was way more reliable than DOS or Windows 95 at the time, a web browser like Netscape could take out the whole system pretty easily on Windows, but when Netscape crashed on Linux, you opened up a shell and killed off whatever was left of it and started a new one.

I had machines that stayed up for years in the late 90's and that was pretty well impossible on Windows.

in high school i saw this xkcd and didn't understand the joke. next thing you know i'm trying to dual boot ubuntu, writing down error messages so i can look them up on the library computers and download alternative gpu drivers onto a flash drive (we didn't have internet at home back then and i couldnt drive yet... so debuggging issues usually took multiple days). weirdly, i enjoyed that experience and here i am ~16 years later. i use linux at home and at work :)

I’m just now getting into it. Set up a laptop with Ubuntu running Plex media server. Been taking some real baby steps watching basic Linux tutorials.

It did take me about 4 hours to figure out how to mount an ext HDD so that Plex would have proper permissions to find the media. It was very rewarding to finally frickin resolve that! I’m still gonna keep pecking away and learn as I go while watching I keep watching tutorials.

I was tired of Windows, so I tried Linux for a month, then switched to Mac OS for a decade.

When Mac OS started to become iOS, I started leaning towards Linux.

When my MacBook keyboard caps started falling off and Apple told me to replace the entire keyboard, I left them indefinitely.

And now I've been here for a few years. So far, so good.

Windows 11 was so buggy that simply plugging in a USB device caused it to crash, I joked about installing Linux then I actually did. I have not looked back since.

Screenshots of x-plane and other games on the back of the Red hat 5.2 jewel case.

Windows 10. I was originally okay with another windows version rather than just updates, and then my dad put it on his as an "upgrade" from 7. It was utter shit. Took an old but serviceable pc and turned it into fucking molasses. And that's not even the worst of the bullshit, as it turned out.

So, I grabbed some CDs and burned on some distros and tried shit out. I liked what I found, with the exception of audio.

I'm definitely not obsessed. I don't have brand loyalty, even when the brand is free as in beer. And I'm not evangelical in that I don't inject linux into every fucking computer related conversation. But I do speak up for the fact that we aren't stuck with only windows and no other options, and that I prefer Linux overall.

Now, I am a bit zealous about how much I fucking hate Microsoft and windows, but that's a separate issue imo. But, again, I don't inject that into every conversation.

I don't really have any one stand out reason. I first introduced myself to Linux in the late 1990s, buying a Red Hat CD and phone book sized manual that at the time cost a lot, especially as I was poor student. I think one of my tutors (I as doing computer studies) said that he ran Linux and I got nerdy and curious. It sadly didn't last long as too much of my other study was based around Windows.

Over time, Iecame to despise corporate monopolies, spying, manipulation, billion dollar advertising budgets, and turning people into products (not just Microsoft, but Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.) more and more, so I decided it was time (early 2010s) to give Linux a go again. I'd read people saying it was more usable for gaming than it used to be. Still required giving up some games since Steam Proton wasn't a thing yet but for me, I was making an concious choice to only support gaming that was Linux native (or games that I already owned that worked on WINE).

I distro hopped bit before settling on Mint. Used that for about 2 years and then got a new PC. Wanted to challenge myself more and went with Arch. I have enjoyed the customisation, freedom, privacy and ethically conscious choice ever since.

I wouldn't say I'm obsessed but I certainly try and free other people from the shackles of non-floss software as much as I can.

I built a computer and didn't have high speed Internet about 18 years ago. Couldn't get Windows activated so a friend gave me a (Debian?) CD so I could get something going. Been keeping old machines alive with it ever since.

RIP Windows 7

Ubuntu used to ship out free installation CDs. Since it was free, I figured why the hell not. Played around with it, loved it, but didn't use it for much more than messing around.

A decade later those fond memories enticed me to buy a Raspberry Pi and play around with Linux again, and a few years later it became my main OS. It's just so much fun to tinker with in a way that Windows never was, and nowadays it runs almost everything without a problem.

Back in the day, it was the cheapest way to get a company online. I built a slakware server with sendmail and squid on our isdn line

I had been using Linux on servers for years, and finally also decided to give it a shot on the Desktop during the Linux challenge from linustechtips. Went to PopOS first, then Fedora and Debian and am currently on OpenSuse.

I'm a primarily Windows systems administrator with about 18 years of Iat field experience.

While I initially played with Linux to get war3 running back in the day of mandrake/mandriva on and off it was only a curiosity.

But during covid with work from home windows became synonymous with work. I couldn't sit and use my personal pc any more without a alert, a message, an email, a system in my tool stack (MSP employee). I couldn't relax.

Then I decided to buy a second ssd and I ran just some Linux, I think popOS. I administrate and use Ubuntu servers at work and in labs a lot, so it was familiar enough to get around and wine had improved a lot. New things like lutris showed me that running overwatch and starcraft2 was possible in a wizard.

Next I learned about proton and the upcoming steam deck and the compatibility modes in steam and except for some yakuza games almost my 400 title library was unlocked in Linux.

You know what doesn't work in Linux? Almost all my systems remote management tools. So now if I boot Linux I'm not working.

I'm not really a Linux advocate. I'm not a Windows advocate. I'm not a mac advocate. Right now I design solutions for companies and while I'm biased I'm tools to tasks minded. The right tool for the job for the workflow, that integrates correctly, and improves productivity and enjoyment of the task.

Linux fits that for my case for personal enjoyment, but can't possibly fit my use case for my job. It allows me to be disconnected and relaxed. It gave my personal pc meaning again in a covid and sometimes post covid world.

Self hosting. I was using windows to host teamspeak and game servers. I first got into linux by switching my homelab to linux and running everything in docker containers and VMs. Then from there I started using it on a desktop and laptop as well. Started on manjaro for years. Then went to arch for a year or two. And now I've switched everything over to NixOS.

Talk of advertisements in the Windows app menu was the last straw for me. I don't use any programs that require Windows so I don't have dual boot or anything - although I do have a KDE theme that mimics Windows 95/8 because that was what I grew up with and I'm super nostalgic for it.

That said, I've always been attracted to "third options". My favorite phone was a Windows Phone, my motorcycle is from a small manufacturer, etc.

work requirement, amphetamine-driven endless curiosity of staring at commands and man pages, interest in programming, initial allure of the concept of copyleft

Well, my experience was always on and off: In the past, I always had my phases of trying it out, be it dual-booting, or outright replacing my OS, but always went back to Windows after a couple of months at most due to some software being Windows-only and both VMs and WINE not being sufficient.

But this year, with Windows continuing to get worse (built-in ads, the fact that it eats 60+ GB on a base install, etc.) and me needing Linux for uni anyway: I made the jump and thanks to the work being done with stuff like Proton for games and FOSS software now being good enough for general productivity, I'm happier than ever.

Obsessed? I like customizability and being able to tinker around, but in the end, it's a tool like any other.

i heard about it in a video and immediately went to try it out. i started with linux mint in late 2021!

Windows used to break all the time, Microsoft was evil, that Ubuntu thing showed up.

Curiosity, back around 2010 before I was a teenager. No clue how I heard about it, but the concept of replacing the entire operating system was fascinating. I figured it must be really good if it was such a well kept secret.

A few years later, when I started to learn programming, Linux was the obvious winner. The online course taught C in a Linux environment, and I was amazed that the default Ubuntu build at the time had everything built in, whereas a Windows equivalent required visual studio and licensing adventures.

It really stuck as a daily driver after Windows 7, where a clear trend emerged: Windows got in my way, Linux got out of my way. Simple as.

I wanted to see what the fuss was about after windows 11 came out, because I was sick of Windows intrusive UI and shady business practices.

I still use windows for some things, but now I duel boot to cinnamon and it is my daily desktop driver. I vastly prefer the clean interface and speed of Linux over windows, and I now play most of my games on it too. I was shocked when I realized that Elden Ring runs great, and looks better, on Linux while it was unplayable on windows at release.

I also installed Fedora to my surface pro after a windows update made it impossible to use without severe slowdown. I've had my surface for 6 years and it runs great on Linux.

The only downside to Linux is that, as am artist, the apps are limited. Blender is fantastic, Krita is catching up, but there is no way to use clip studio, harmony (toon boom, storyboard pro), or Zbrush (yes I can sculpt in blender but it is not quite there yet.)

I watched a video from the linux experiment and thought it looked cool, so I kept watching his videos, and now here I am.

I was massively obsessed with all kinds of computer tech in the late 90s to early 2000s, and read about Linux at some point. I tried a few distros* and enjoyed playing around with them, but a combination of them being a bit rough, and needing to run Windows for games and to support people for my work meant that I couldn't switch.

Over the years I tried out different distros, and even had home servers running before it was cool (obligatory 😎 ), but because I knew Windows inside out, the things that I was trying to do with Linux were much easier for me on Windows.

A few years ago I bought a few older laptops that ran like dogs even under Windows 7, so tried dual booting Mint. The laptops still struggled, so I had to switch my wife's back, but I persevered with mine. I upgraded to new to us refurbished laptops and put Mint on mine again. I also switched our media server to Xubuntu at some point over the last few years.

Windows 10 was getting slower and slower, even though it was a 7th gen i5 with an SSD and 32GB RAM, so I bit the bullet and wiped the Windows partition. I upgraded the RAM and added an SSD to my kid's laptop and did the same. My kid had to have Windows on their desktop because of the problems with Roblox, but the success of the laptops has lead to me dual booting my desktop and trying to switch full time. I've got a batch scanning job to finish under Windows because I can't get the colours to match under Linux, and I've got a few thousand photos to process in Photoshop, and then I'm hoping to switch full time.

I'm not an evangelist by any means, but I do wish that Linux had got to this stage a few years earlier, while I was the go to geek for so many of my friends, because I know loads of people who would have loved using it back then :)

*Hoary Hedgehog as an OS name still makes me laugh :D

My computer was trash. I migrated out of necessity. It took 40 minutes to boot into Windows XP. Old-timey Lubuntu kept that computer alive for another 5 years.

When I got a real computer, I found that using Windows was unpleasant -- So when Proton started to mature, I switched back to Linux (cuz hey, vidya gaems).

... Then I became an adult and the political radicalisation began.

I'm not "obssessed" so much as I am politically motivated, so I guess I'm an evangelist in a way. If there were ten other mature open source operating systems I'd shill all of them. As it is there's Linux and BSD. So those are the ones I shill.

Generally I'll pester anyone willing to listen to get as far from Big Tech's walled gardens as their life necessities allow them.

I'm not a tech person, I think most Linux people are? Instead I'm just someone who studied basic sociology and history, and can see the kind of power that walled-garden tech can (and HAS, in recent times) give to very few people.

Curiosity. Then starting development and figuring out most things non-MS specific assume UNIX/Linux based. I'm not obsessed at all, I quite enjoy macOS, and don't mind Windows too much for what I do with it, but it's my OS of choice for development machines, and any servers I control.

My hard drive on my laptop died in college and I needed to get a paper written in a few days. I didn't money to get a new Windows license and Fedora was free and had a live disc I could burn to install off of in the school's computer lab without getting in trouble. I distro hopped a bit since then, but never went back to Windows. Things worked and it wasn't as hard as people made it sound.

No evangelizing, I just use my computer.