It's been a long time but I recall I wanted to expand my knowledge of computers as a teenager. Back then it was harder to do anything with Linux but my Dad had a free disc of SUSE Linux so I started there. Then when I came back to having a desktop, instead of a laptop, I decided to give Linux a try again (I was trying to avoid Windows at the time) and I instantly fell in love with how far it had come and I've never looked back
the Raspi 1: #Boku we needed to store pH-meter readings. the USB to RS232 dongle with a win laptop did not work well, but there was a RS232 hat for a raspi.
Windows 3.1.x ate a University paper I worked tirelessly on. There was no auto save at the time and at 3AM, I forgot to do so. When you have to rewrite 40% of a 70-page paper, it tends to be irksome.
heard about it from a guy at a local computer store as a teenager in the mid 90s. Got hold of a Mandrake Linux CD (remember that one?) from somewhere and started messing around.
Things progressed from there and I'm lucky to use Linux exclusively at home and work these days.
I was working with multiple variants of Linux on the job. This was back in 2016-ish. A buddy of mine told me I should dual boot with a Linux OS at the time and said 'good luck'. Sometimes I want to smack that friend, but I'm glad I stuck with it. So thanks friend for making me beat my head against the Linux wall. You are appreciated. You know who you are.
switching from Atari ST to DOS/Windows 3.11 pc felt painful. Switching the pc on physically gave me pain. But I could only use it in dual boot because of ms office back then. These days, windows is only required as a VM for one single program on my Linux laptop. At university we had 24 inch color monitors on hp-ux driven xterminals. It was such a wonderful environment to work in. Linux (LST and SuSe back then) felt as nice at home.
Circa 2001 or so, spent a lot of time as a late-teens-aged person hanging out in IRC. Learned about UNIX/BSD and then learned there was a free and open OS out there and went on to explore running Mandrake Linux and Red Hat on Pentium machines then eventually running Gentoo circa 2005
25 years later, the *nix terminal is still my one true home.
Microsoft started trying to force Windows 10 on my computer. That alone was bad enough, but their sketchy tactics made it worse, and the knowledge that they were moving toward the surveillance model worse still.
Curiosity. Because it's so legendary and exudes an aura of coolness. I wanted to know if I, as a normal person without great computer skills, could do it too. The many encouragements here, too, when the topics of network policy and data protection were given so much attention for various reasons.
FREEDOM to choose and privacy, I don't have anything to hide, but I close the door when I go to the toilets 😁 it's also why I switch to #eOS on my phone !
Windows 10 end of support on a laptop just barely old enough to be denied installing Windows 11 sparked my interest. Not that I would have installed Windows 11 because, well, I like to own my software, not rent it. So now I have dual boot Linux Mint for my laptop while I begin a phased transition off of Windows entirely.
It was about two years ago now and the first rumors of Microslop screenshotting your computer were coming out. I was already getting irritated with data collection and everything and that just pushed my buttons.
Fast forward to today and I am so glad I moved away from literally a spyware OS. I also love the freedom of doing whatever I want with MY computer. Not being told what I can and cannot do.
Probably didn't even know of it until I bought an eeepc with Xandros on it in 2008. While I didn't stick with it long term, it became a thing to put Linux on older computers and by 2021 all my PCs bar my main were running linux until last summer when I finally fully switched.
the first push was in 1994, I had just bought my first PC, and was inquisitive, but I initially stuck to #Windows, the second in 2002, I was looking for a robust server stack for JEE, webprofile at my employer and chose suse linux enterprise, finally in 2022 I wanted to regain full control over my private machines again, better stability and maintainability and to protect myself from bigtech's data collection frenzy - #linux delivers in all aspects
it was new, it was interesting, I read a book about it and had to try it. So bought a pack with cd roms from walnut creek with slackware Linux on it. Fun times.
Around 1996, Watchtower m68k on Amiga. After a miserable and aborted attempt to switch to PCs a few years earlier, I took an interest in OSes. A magazine I read back then provided the Watchtower distro, and while it was utterly broken, I was fascinated by its alienness. Later, I switched to intel machines, and have kept running Linux as my main OS ever since.
when I discovered Ubuntu while casually browsing the internet, and that time they even send free CD sent directly to you to try it. After that it's history.
it was around 2006, my friend introduced me to Ubuntu Live, which turned out to be extremely useful whenever my Windows PC failed, so I could get all my files out of it before formatting disc C and reinstalling Win =) And after my previous PC passed away I decided to not install Windows anymore, as it was becoming more and more unusable anyway. It's been 3+ years of Linux only, no regrets!
arround 2001. I founded a CD with a magazine , it contains QNX, BeOS and WinLinux2000. I tried all them, but I liked WinLinux on Win98se. Freedom, no viruses, no cracks, no serials and a lot of curiosity. I m using Linux since this time. It s an amazing OS.
Back in 1996 I needed to learn to use (and administer) AIX (IBM's flavor of UNIX) for work without damaging our one AIX box, so I thought, "I hear Linux is like UNIX. I also hear it's free and runs on x86 hardware. I'll give it a shot." I bought a copy of "Linux For Dummies" which included a copy of RHL 6.1, and I was off. By the end of 1997, I was all Linux.
the thought that windows was a tricky spywaresystem and decides what you can do with a system and you never own it even if you pay for all their socalled privacy and safety concerns
An engineer friend, with whom I used to do C programming, told me one day, "There's a guy in Finland who made a new kernel." It was 1992, and that's when I became passionate about it.
The third time Windows had an unrecoverable crash and had to be reinstalled. I had everything backed up, but installing Windows, deleting all the crap that comes with it, reinstalling and configuring all my applications looks hours each time (Windows 95).
its zero cost max transparency and freedom is the main reason I use linux I use feodra in my lenovo ideapad slim 3 laptop I am using it for over a year now no issues I faced with my college and personal needs I use librewolf and libreoffice mostly and joplin for notes my entire laptop is full of foss softwares I love them so much just thinking about linux makes me feel alive
I attended PenguiCon in 2005 which was half sci-fi / half Linux. I was there for the sci-fi music track so only glanced at the Linux part. At the 2007 con, I got a CD of Ubuntu 7.04 to try at home. It did not go well. In 2008, I was given Xubuntu 8.04 and used it on a salvaged laptop off and on for a few years. Moved to Ubuntu 10.04, then faded away when 12.04 and 14.04 failed to run. Tried a few other distros over the next decade, nothing stuck. Now on Mint full time as of fall 2024.
A growing desire culminating in being inspired to boicoting bigtech after a webinar in spring of 2025 by @attacnorge and #Tekna. Trump is a dick 🤛 Long live the international court in the Netherlands and their chief attorney who was blocked by Microslop.
I thought Windows (3.1) was bad and the Sun workstations at the university were cool. Plus, I wasn't about to pay for software. Sooo, Linux was the game. I got in at about 0.95pl3 or so, it's been a minute.
Main point is that I can use and develop systems on Linux in absence of commercial licenses. FOSS is usually the way to go, as what is expressed by commercial vendors/licensing when it comes to pricing, conditions, product limitations etc. is outright ridiculous on a regular basis. This is usually a problem for larger companies that have become dominated by incompetent, parasitic marketing and sales departments who stand between the customer and a solution, ramping up costs while adding no value. These structures also don't inspire confidence in the product. I don't want to waste my time on proprietary products that suddenly become defunct or "AI", or whatever or deal with companies that go bankrupt/get sold every other year.
something something #Fedora 3, windows ME?(i think?), #nerd #alwayshavetobedifferent still can't do anything in #linux but i'm not on windows 11 hahahahaha!
It kinda just was there, and since being good at computers was my only personality trait(not much changed) back in middle school, I just tried it. Obviously it didn't went well, because that was back in 2017-ish, one year give or take, and I liked playing games. But I vibed with it, so I dual booted until somewhere in 2021-2022, when I already felt like support was good enough, I wiped windows from the hard drive from my old laptop.
Human Mimic
in reply to It's FOSS • • •It's FOSS
in reply to Human Mimic • • •jspb
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Arkadiusz Wieczorek
in reply to It's FOSS • • •bitterseeds
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Tristan
in reply to It's FOSS • • •🦄 🅃🅁🄰🄽🅂🄸🄲🄾🅁🄽 🏳️⚧️
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Had a Toshiba laptop in 1999 that was painfully slow running Windows NT 4.0 - Didn't want 98 SE...
A friend who used linux got me curious about it and then helped me install Red Hat Linux 6.0 on it. Worked much better, been using linux since then.
DyingWorld 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇪🇺🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
in reply to It's FOSS • • •heard about it from a guy at a local computer store as a teenager in the mid 90s. Got hold of a Mandrake Linux CD (remember that one?) from somewhere and started messing around.
Things progressed from there and I'm lucky to use Linux exclusively at home and work these days.
Faraiwe
in reply to It's FOSS • • •MrGrumpyMonkey
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Joachim Tuchel
in reply to It's FOSS • • •GeistAusDerFlasche
in reply to It's FOSS • • •lunr
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Circa 2001 or so, spent a lot of time as a late-teens-aged person hanging out in IRC. Learned about UNIX/BSD and then learned there was a free and open OS out there and went on to explore running Mandrake Linux and Red Hat on Pentium machines then eventually running Gentoo circa 2005
25 years later, the *nix terminal is still my one true home.
anon_4601
in reply to It's FOSS • • •TheZorse
in reply to It's FOSS • • •warumms
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Bertrand Cherrier
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Michael McWilliams
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Elijah Ryu
in reply to It's FOSS • • •It was about two years ago now and the first rumors of Microslop screenshotting your computer were coming out. I was already getting irritated with data collection and everything and that just pushed my buttons.
Fast forward to today and I am so glad I moved away from literally a spyware OS. I also love the freedom of doing whatever I want with MY computer. Not being told what I can and cannot do.
Ellegaarddk
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Lê Quan Ninh
in reply to It's FOSS • • •TheBen
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Paradox
in reply to It's FOSS • • •diesUndDasMitTassen 🇺🇦
in reply to It's FOSS • • •the first push was in 1994, I had just bought my first PC, and was inquisitive, but I initially stuck to #Windows, the second in 2002, I was looking for a robust server stack for JEE, webprofile at my employer and chose suse linux enterprise, finally in 2022 I wanted to regain full control over my private machines again, better stability and maintainability and to protect myself from bigtech's data collection frenzy - #linux delivers in all aspects
#diday #unplugtrump #unplugbigtech
Daniel
in reply to It's FOSS • • •So bought a pack with cd roms from walnut creek with slackware Linux on it.
Fun times.
Heuristix
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Markus Rudel
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Rashitha Rajapaksha
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Zot Nobot
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Aris
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Edward
in reply to It's FOSS • • •TrimTab 🇺🇦
in reply to It's FOSS • • •It's FOSS
in reply to TrimTab 🇺🇦 • • •LinkyKatsumiVT
in reply to It's FOSS • • •creating.maria
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Simou
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Freedom, no viruses, no cracks, no serials and a lot of curiosity.
I m using Linux since this time. It s an amazing OS.
RIBBBITn3rding
in reply to It's FOSS • • •bornasrich
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Gato Negro
in reply to It's FOSS • • •It's FOSS
in reply to Gato Negro • • •Gato Negro
in reply to It's FOSS • • •__ˣ𝙆𝙊𝙎𝘼𝙈𝘼ˣ__
in reply to It's FOSS • • •The Steam Deck, first being able to run all the games in my library, only 17 didn't work and since then it's down to 12.
Then adding apps via the App Store (package manger?). Being genuinely surprised by things being on there and it really just working like on windows.
Then exploring some of the other stuff on there.
I really want a Steam Phone.
BoloMKXXVIII
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Capitã Jack No Comando
in reply to It's FOSS • • •carbon5327
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Back To Analog
in reply to It's FOSS • • •It's FOSS
in reply to Back To Analog • • •WG
in reply to It's FOSS • • •evilZ
in reply to It's FOSS • • •"imunity" against malevare/viruses/etc.
Edit; typo
Kjetil G 🇳🇴
in reply to It's FOSS • • •JESCOM.dk
in reply to It's FOSS • • •ThinkrDotExe
in reply to It's FOSS • • •HuskyPenguin79
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Arturo Serrano 🇨🇴🤖👽🧙🦄
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Z-Ray Entertainment
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Paulo Delgado
in reply to It's FOSS • • •khánh
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Duong Ngo
in reply to It's FOSS • • •四
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Lunar 🛸 ♾
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Stylus
in reply to It's FOSS • • •chri�
in reply to It's FOSS • • •FOSS is usually the way to go, as what is expressed by commercial vendors/licensing when it comes to pricing, conditions, product limitations etc. is outright ridiculous on a regular basis.
This is usually a problem for larger companies that have become dominated by incompetent, parasitic marketing and sales departments who stand between the customer and a solution, ramping up costs while adding no value. These structures also don't inspire confidence in the product. I don't want to waste my time on proprietary products that suddenly become defunct or "AI", or whatever or deal with companies that go bankrupt/get sold every other year.
Henning Paul DC4HP
in reply to It's FOSS • • •PixRetro
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Hagarashi8
in reply to It's FOSS • • •Chuck
in reply to It's FOSS • • •