I started fairly recently (probably somewhere between nine and seven years ago; time isn’t my strong suit, cut me some slack) on Debian. Now I’m on Arch Linux.
In 1993, a guy I knew had a Linux server running in his dorm room. I think it was a 0.9x kernel. He dialed into the University network and I was able to telnet in through my own dial up connection to the University. He was running Slackware.
Within a couple months, I downloaded all 30+ 1.44 diskette images and built my own Slackware server. In that time I used Slackware and Red Hat (which then became Fedora before RHEL became a thing). Now I've pretty much settled on Debian for servers and Arch for desktop/laptop systems.
I dabbled in Linux for a while (since 2009, college). I did some distro hopping for a while ( Ubuntu, opensuse, mint, Debian). I finally mained Linux after windows 8 came out, ugh.
I mained Manjaro and then switched over to Endeavour. I couldn't be happier. My opinion of Linux keeps getting better and better, but that's probably because I have to fix my parents computers once in a while. They run windows 10 now. I hate it. Ads in the start menu?! Kill me now.
Valve with Proton also helped a lot. Playing games on Linux is easy as pushing play. If I have any problems, I just wait for a glorious egg roll to drop.
I started dualbooting 12 years ago, never used linux. Started again dualbooting 9 years ago, never used linux. Purged windows 2-3 years ago
I'm on silverblue and I don't care about the system anymore because I don't interact with it. It auto updates and I've got a fedora distrobox. I'd probably do the same if I were on opensuse or arch, meaning nothing would change for me if I would distro hop.
Edit: I fancy with opensuse Aeon but I don't really gain much. Maybe I'll install it on my next machine
Mid 90s at work as a project support technician in Sony Broadcast R&D in the UK. Slackware, then red hat mostly. Installed Linux boxes in various digital TV stations in London in 1999/2000, used to insert interactive games into the broadcast stream.
I was a sysadmin from 99 to about 2018, from then onwards I'm more DevOps. Done a bunch of stuff with CentOS too, including migrating 500k email accounts to our hosted solution. Other cool stuff included a VMware based development environment using Foreman + FreeIPA to auto provision dev VMs with all sorts of puppet code.
Now at home I run Fedora and work on macOS, writing Terraform and Python. And some nodejs too.
Been at it a long ass time now lol
Started out with Mandrake in 1998 and got into Debian shortly after. I moved to Gentoo in 2002. In the later 2000s I only used my desktop for gaming and stopped dual booting for many years. My home server runs BSD and I was using a 2010 MacBook as my laptop. The only Linux box in my home was my HTPC, running Ubuntu.
When I heard of Proton I started dual booting again. In 2020 I got rid of Windows and the aging MacBook. Since then my desktop, laptop and HTPC run on Arch. The server is still FreeBSD.
bout 20 years ago, i was using knoppix and dyne:bolic... then backtrack, then kali...
linux mint, kubuntu, lubuntu... ubuntu...
probably because i like programming and thought hacking was kool...
I think im gonna try Void Linux next... i've heard great things...
i've still kept my dual boot all this time, because of a couple programs... and a backup for when i brick my linux partition...Slackware in 93 or 94, on a 386DX40 with 4MiB ram and a 40MiB HDD. A friend and I split downloading the disk sets 1/2 disks a day on our limited ISP time.
When Netscape came out, I ran it on that machine. It took literally 30 minutes to start (with much swapping), but was actually usable thereafter.
Sometime in the late 2000s. Bought a used netbook and didn't know it was running on Ubuntu. Over the years I went through PeppermintOS, Crunchbang, BunsenLabs, Antergos, Arch, and many others. Now I'm on Mint because I don't have the time to maintain my OS and just need something that works. The graph meme where long time users end up with a "basic" distro in the end is somewhat true.
I tried a long time ago on Mandrake or Mandriva, cannot remember. Didn't stick and eventually after trying to use Windows 10 on a HDD, Linux Mint welcomed me with open arms. Now duel booting on OpenSuse but haven't started Windows in 6 months. I just don't need it anymore. Thanks to the Wine and proton teams!
I was in college looking to avoid writing papers, and I installed Ubuntu Feisty Fawn (2007). Still run Linux PC s and servers. Work with Windows all day :p
I don't even remember. It was around 2000, I was 15 or something like that. I think I heard about it from my brother and a guy running local computer store hooked me up with my first distro, Mandrake I believe. I remember searching for things like 'printing how-to' on HotBot using links (I didn't learn English in school so reading all the man pages really helped me with the language), setting up IRC bots using screen and irssi/BitchX, burning cds using mkisofs | cdrecord and generally having a lot of fun. After some time I would switch to Windows mostly to play games but when Country-Strike started working in wine I pretty much stopped using Windows. There was a small Linux/open source conference in my country and I gave there a talk when at a university. Couple years later when I was looking for my first job I ended up in a interview with some guys that went to this conference a lot. I got the job and since the company was very Linux oriented and never had to use Windows there. Now I'm still working in IT and use Linux exclusively at work and at home.
About 2 years ago but I can't believe it's been that long tbh. I started with Ubuntu but switched to arch after about a year mainly because I enjoyed the challenge and learning involved in installing it through a command line. I understand my computer a little more because of it.
I chose Linux mainly for privacy reasons; I didn't enjoy having a spyware as my OS but my friends call me crazy for going as far as I have to avoid being tracked. Idk it just bothers me.
I started because of ProxMox on my Server. I started about a Year ago with Linux Desktops because of Privacy. I wanted to only use it for Office and have a Windows Dual Boot for Gaming. Then i tried a few Games on Linux and realized that Proton is great. Then i only used Linux. Then i deleted Windows. Now i love Linux and Hate Windows
I started using linux as my mac got unusable with macOS First touch with Linux I had in Work, i test our products which run on an embedded Linux yocto build.
Now, my phone and my buisness windows are now the only proprietary OSs I use (have a pinePhone, bit it is not daily drivable for me)
Now I have the old macbookpro5,2 running Arch and my iMac running openSuse TW. For my smart home, I have a pi Zero 2W running hombridge via hoobs. Ah yea and a router on a board that I got from a friend running on OpnSense. With him I have a proxmox server running.
