Linux

Linux 95

I started messing around with Linux when I was ~15. I was trying to install it on an old laptop so I could actually use it. I started with Debian before moving to Linux mint. Eventually I bought a raspberry pi and started to tinker with that and made my own website for shits and giggles. Eventually, I kinda stopped tinkering with Linux for a while

Flash forward a few years and my job has a piece of software that boots into a live gentoo environment in order to perform hard drive wiping, and I got a lot more familiar with the Linux command line (bash in this case) as I had to do a lot of troubleshooting as well as testing as I was in technical support and then later QA. This was also my first experience with VI, as I had to edit configuration files while inside of the live environment.

At that point, I started to experiment with Linux again, and even managed to install arch on my laptop. I did end up switching to Manjaro as my daily driver, as I couldn't be assed to spend enough time to get arch working how I needed. I also now have an Ubuntu server (I know) that I use as a media and game server, and continue to daily drive manjaro though I'm planning on switching to EndeavorOS soon.

I started to use Linux near the beggining of 2022, during my Programming Logic classes (my high school had a computing course alongside normal classes).

In the end of 2022 I switched my laptop from Windows to Xubuntu until the middle of 2023 where I switched to Arch linux and have no plans of moving away :)

I started around the time when Windows 95 came out. Slackware was my jam. I now run Arch on one box and Debian 12 on another. It helped my career as a sysadmin.

In the early 90s I was running a BBS on DesqView over DOS and was annoyed by the limitations. My older hardware didn't have grunt or RAM (SIPP at $50/MB) to run OS/2 like the big dogs. I also had nearly no money (grad student).

I started experimenting with MINIX, and from there to linux. IIRC I started with Slackware, flirted with Red Hat, then found Debian and it was true lurve. Since that time I've generally run servers on Debian stable and workstations on Debian testing.

Ages ago, perhaps over 10 years ago (not keeping track because then I'll have to admit I'm getting older). I think it was because of the surprisingly common issue where wifi would just... Stop working in Windows. Installed Ubuntu and basically had fun tweaking it and learning Linux.

Then Windows 8 happened and everyone decided that they needed to change how everything worked to copy their example. Hopped between Unity, Gnome 3 and Gnome 2 for a while, looking for something that suited my tastes before eventually settling on Mint and Cinnamon.

Datamining thread

Went full Linux in the early 2000s. Never went back. Started with Debian and Ubuntu. Tried many distros for varying amounts of time. I always come back to Debian.

I'm just a regular desktop Linux user. It's great.

I first experienced Linux around 2020 when Windows was getting super slow on my gaming pc at the time but couldn’t make the jump because I was still heavy into games like League of Legends. I started off hopping around with Mint, Elementary and Fedora.

Once I started moving towards playing retro games on emulator and gaming on Switch I made the switch. I did A LOT of distro hopping and was never satisfied. Now I’ve finally settled on Fedora and built it from the ground up with the Everything iso and running Qtile. Using Linux has made me realize I love tinkering with computers, electronics and it has made me interested in programming. It’s been a ride (though a short one), but it has helped me find new interests I didn’t know I had and learn there’s a lot more than just Windows.

I installed Linux on my personal computer about 3 months ago. I have been running EndeavourOS and recommend it.

It all started when every browser dropped support on my old MacBook. I installed arch Linux and was completely blown away by the increase in performance. It's insane how much MacOS was holding me back. Insane. Decided to buy a new drive for my desktop computer and installed Manjaro on a trial basis, leaving windows as a fallback option if needed. A week later I installed EndeavourOS and got rid of windows altogether.

It has been a bumpy road, lots of small little problems. Nvidia GPU certainly doesn't help.

Started with Ubuntu back in 2016 when it still had the reddish brown mud theme. I still have some.of the installation discs you could order back then.

I started using because I started Computer Science university and I thought I should finally learn Linux. Fell in love with it and have been using ever since. I now use Fedora.

At the time I tried (2009), I was too young and afraid of messing up my Windows (I didn't even know if I was able to remove Windows and not loose the warranty), so I was finally did thanks to the marvelous Wubi installer. It let you try Ubuntu without messing around with partitions. Thanks to that, I was able to start learning Linux until I gained confidence and did a proper dual boot.

Now I only use Arch, even for work.

Oh boy. I definitely started with Ubuntu 17.04 in 2017 when I started uni, then soon downgraded to 16.04 because Unity was soooo much better than Gnome. But afterwards it's a blur, I was distrohopping basically every few months, sometimes even more often. I used Antergos (RIP), Manjaro, all flavors of Ubuntu except Gnome, Mint, then I was into the whole minimalistic tiling wm suckless no-systemd rabbit hole with Void, I also did KDE Neon at some point, I definitely did pure Arch as well, and Artix too. Sometimes I even hopped at work when I had a bit more time. God I miss those days...

Right now I've settled on Mint for work and Endeavor for personal use and haven't hopped for over a year which is as long as I've ever gone. I miss hopping but I'm so comfy right now. I've been thinking about finally giving Gentoo a go full time as I've been flirting with the idea forever. And there's also Nix. And I've been meaning to try a system where I fully embrace flatpak (right now I never use it). I'd also like to try something like Qubes eventually. So yeah, plenty to see still after all these years.

I think it was 1998 or so? I put Mandrake on my Sony Vaio Pentium II MMX.

I'm trying out Fedora again on an AMD Ryzen 5 system I built last year. Was running Nobara for several months prior. And Mint for about 10 years before that. Prior to that I was on MacOS and/or Windows. I don't think I had a Linux system at that time.

Early 2000s, I was a young pc repair guy and Linux offered a free solution to “what to do with these computers people abandon”. Started out with Redhat when it was free but switched to Ubuntu when it came out. Since then I always ran Linux on a secondary computer or laptop because I needed windows to play games. Back in 2008 I ran Linux exclusively for a while because I couldn’t afford a windows license and I played some games using WINE. As of last year I have again switched to using Linux exclusively due to privacy concerns and Valve making Proton work for most games I play.

When cfw for ps3 came out you needed either a ti-84 calculator or an iphone to put the firmware on the console. I had an iphone so installed ubuntu on my pc so i could dual boot ios and android on the phone then replace android with the cfw. I never even knew there was anything but windows back then.

I’ve dabbled with Linux here annd there since 1999 when I installed Caldera Open Linux 2.2 on a pos desktop I had at the time.

Caldera ran pretty well on that machine for about six months, until the machine up and died. IIRC, the motherboard fried.

My next foray was around 2007ish when I had a dell laptop that was struggling to run windows. I was also interested in tinkering, so I installed Ubuntu for the first time. I think it was Hardy Heron (8.04).

I ran that for a good year or so, until the charging port on the laptop took a shit, but I didn’t really get deep into Linux. I just used it for general computing.

My next computer was a MacBook Pro 2009 13”. This began a long relationship with Macs and macOS that continues to this day, though I am far less enamored of Apple and macOS now than I was in the past.

What was great about Macs and osx/macos over that period was that by and large it did what Apple promised. It just worked. The hardware was powerful and reliable, and the software let me get my work done (photo and video production), and so I had no desire to use anything else.

During this time period I also built a windows pc dedicated to live streaming as part of my production work, which is relevant, because about four years ago, right before the pandemic hit, I quit photo and video production.

So I had this pc sitting around, and I once again decided it was time to give Linux a spin, and now I’m all in. For three years running, that pc has been my home server running Ubuntu (just updated it to 22.04). With that server I’ve really been learning about Linux, and it’s been a lot of fun.

I’d love to put Asahi on the m1 Mac mini that is our main household computer, but my wife wouldn’t be too happy with me if I did that, so I’m still using macOS. I spend a lot of time at the terminal, often working on the server over ssh, but also just working with my files locally.

Since macOS is bsd based I’ve run across a number of cli tools that work just different enough from their Linux counterparts. I found that frustrating and confusing, and decided I wanted consistency in my cli tools. Since I can’t install Asahi, I found Multipass and installed that on the Mac mini. So now I have an Ubuntu vm with my pertinent local drives mounted to give me a consistent experience with shell whether I’m working on the server or working on the Mac.

I really started with Pop!_OS in early April of last year after watching a dual boot setup guide from LTT. I'm currently on Gentoo, tho I prefer Arch.

Kernel 0.99pl13, Slackware, 386-SX 16. Started as an obsessive hobby, became a career.

I started a decade ago on Ubuntu for an after-school cybersecurity club. From there, I eventually tried Mint and then Lubuntu and Kinoite. I'm now using Debian in WSL.

@[email protected] I started in about 2006 when my work was going to fully convert to Ubuntu. At the last minutes the CIO left and our project champion also left, and Windows continued, but I'd been bitten by the bug and continued to use Ubuntu at work and at home since then. Now on Manjaro KDE.