Curiosity. I was in primary school in mid 2000’s looking forward to learn more about computers. I only had access to the internet in school but whenever I could freely use it, I mostly spent time reading about history of software and hardware. By the time I received my first PC, which was slightly outdated (late 90’s), but overall fun. The only thing I knew was different versions of Windows and question on alternatives appeared naturally - I was wondering if that’s the only OS that can be used with the hardware. Around 2005 I was conscious of Linux existence, not really sure what it is and how is it possible that it’s free. I didn’t try anything until year later when I ordered free Ubuntu 6.06 CD, but it didn’t play nicely on 128MB of RAM. I managed to make it work anyway by creating a swap partition, however without internet connection there wasn’t that much of use. It wasn’t until 2007 when I finally got in house ADSL and upgraded the PC. Soon after I tried newer version of Ubuntu, struggled to make internet work on it (over tiny little ADSL USB modem that wasn’t well supported yet) but eventually succeeded. Fast forward 16 years later I still daily drive Linux and now work as a Linux admin.
I first heard about a Raspberry Pi on the 2 meter band, someone mentioned making contacts in Europe with one. Sounded intriguing. I wanted to work digital modes but didn’t really want to hook up my laptop to my radio for fear of wiring it wrong, so I bought a Raspberry Pi. Which runs Debian Linux. I learned how to cd and ls and sudo and apt-get.
Then that laptop I was being so precious with suffered a monitor backlight failure. And it was time for a new laptop. This was in 2014, Windows 8.1 was on the shelves at that point.
I was enjoying using the Pi at the time, and decided to try running Linux on my new laptop instead of Windows. And I’ve been using Linux Mint ever since.
windows 8 that came with my core i3 laptop. did not jump into the windows10 bandwagon for all the bad things i was hearing about it. gave up when some apps start doing crazy stuff because os is old. mucked around with mint, and distro hopping from usb. mind-blown. now i’ve acquired a fairly new laptop and dual booted with debian12. has never done a random restart on it for months (due to force-it-down-your-throat-win-update). i still use a win laptop for work and some games, but that will never touch my personal computer. it’s fun reading all the comments here. thanks :)
High School friend showed me their install, and how it had these sick spinning cube desktop. Ditched it once I realized I couldn’t do anything I wanted on it.
In University, the ComSci labs all had networked machines with Ubuntu installed. It was cool, but again outside of coding, I couldn’t do anything I wanted on it.
2022, I got a new Laptop, couldn’t use Windows 11 without an account (I know of the work arounds). MS has Windows 10 with a EOL in 2025, and Valve is pushing the Steam Deck hard. Gave it a second shot. I now can do everything I want on it without issue. I even made a 1 year retrospective video about it.
My dad gave me a laptop running ubuntu as my first computer many years ago and I have never found any non-linux operating system I really liked. There are some things I love about Haiku, but it just isn’t quite good enough to replace Linux for me, at least not yet
Stopped evangelising when I realised people hate evangelists telling them what they should do. Started leading by example instead. Curious people approach you if they want to learn.
I ended up replacing windows with Ubuntu. I liked it a lot but I couldn’t use it because I needed to use FL Studio on windows. I started dual booting Linux with windows to get a sense of the terminal. I’m not the most experienced user but I figured out how to get around and I enjoy using Linux. I have tried Arch, Nix, EndeavorOS, ArcoLinux, Manjaro, and Ubuntu Unity. I want to try OpenSUSE since I’ve been reading up on it and it seems to be my end game distro imo.
I was very curious about computing and trying different applications
I liked customizing and tinkering with my setup: Launcher, window manager, icons, etc.
I was a poor teenager
On the windows side, there were neat apps like Stardock Windowblinds, for the most part, everything was paid and expensive for someone with no disposable income.
Mind was blown when I realized everything I wanted was available for free! My first install was actually from a CD that came with a book I checked out from the public library
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.
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 :)
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