in 2002 when my windows me computer start looping on the blue screen of death, with all of my college papers/essays/tests/assignments trapped in it.

the recovery media refused to work because i had upgraded the computer several times and i couldn’t afford the $180 windows xp cd. so i bought a linux magazine for $5 that included a copy of mandrake linux installation media and used paper printouts from my college’s computer labs to help me rescue my work from the computer.

Recently started learning Linux with ChatGPT…

And WOW! I love Linux!! It’s so easy to deploy apps with Docker!

My college buddy first told me about Linux at around the start of 1998. After some research I decided I would make the switch at the end of the semester. For a couple years I had mac but I’ve always had a Linux box running.

Just to put you all on notice: I started my kids on Linux from day 1 of their computing lives. I’m playing the long game here. In another 80 years they’re going to be in the longest living users category.

They mostly use Linux as their daily drivers. Any time they have to use windows for school work they also rage at the terrible UI and lack of ease of use. <Insert evil laughter here>

I started using linux Slackware in 1996. First time I was paid to install linux on a server in 1998. It was Red Hat 5.2 way before they switch to Enterprise Linux.

Been my desktop daily driver since 1999.

Yes, I’m old.

I was given a logging on a RedHat server in 1997. It was operated by a fellow student in the dorm.

My school taught the engineers how to use SunOS for class, so it wasn’t a huge leap to start using a telnet connection to a local Linux machine.

Within a few months I was dual booting an older desktop Linux/Win95, and away I went. Since then it’s been about 90%+ of my daily computer use on Linux machines.

In my early teens, I got really into computers, built my first PC when I was about 13, started learning Windows batch scripting and using GameMaker to make goofy PC games.

Along the way, I found Trinity Rescue Kit and was also introduced to Fedora Core by a nerdy guy who worked at my local YMCA.

I didn’t actually enjoy it too much back then, so I left it alone for years until about 5 years ago when I started to get back into the free software movement and related interests.

I’ve been 100% on Linux for about 4 years now and never looked back.

I started 28 years ago with Slackware 3.0, then Gentoo, Ubuntu, took a detour via OS X, then back to Ubuntu, now Arch.

Back at the university, sometime around 1995 when I needed a Unix for the exams. Downloaded on 1.4 Mb floppies

I first dipped my toes in when I was probably around 14, messed with Ubuntu and damn small Linux but that was about it. I stuck with Mac as I didn’t enjoy windows and needed something “mainstream” back then. It wasn’t until apple made hackintosh’s somewhat obsolete and Microsoft started cramming AI into windows that I made the switch. I now run NixOS on my gaming rig and personal laptop

Debian and Mandrake in the late 1990s. And I was already almost three times as old as you were when you started. These days I’m happy with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed for daily use. I tried NixOS but it threatened to break my old brain.

I think it was about year 2000 +/- I was about 23 yrs old… I’ve tried a most of the big distros, and was using Ubuntu for the longest time. Now it’s Mint I use…

I first experimented with Linux in 1999, but didn’t stay with it for long as I never got X11 working. I started using it more seriously in 2001 / 2002 and by the time Windows XP was established, I was a full time Linux user. I was a lot older than you though being in my mid-thirties.

about 20 years ago. Early 2000s I started messing around with Redhat and was suprised that a full OS that did most of the windows things was available for free. when Ubuntu gained traction I jumped on that and tried distro hopping a bit before landing aolidly on Debian derivatives as my linux of choice. I remember catching a ban in WoW because WINE was detected by their anti cheat for a while.

I initially tried linux mint and ubuntu when i was like 13 on my laptop, which is almost 15 years ago now. At the time it wasn’t because i hated windows, but my monkey brain was just interested in it because it looked so much different. After i realized that i couldn’t just use all my windows programs like usual (and especially gaming wasn’t nearly as good back then), i quickly went back to windows. Fast forward to 2020, at this point i had started disliking windows mainly because all of it’s creepy questions when you install it, like wanting your handwriting information and all that, but at the same time i thought “well what can you do about it?”. Then i saw the LinusTechTips video about trying linux instead of windows 11. This was the first time i had actually thought of linux again in all those years. The video convinced me to give it a try and i started with PopOS. After a few months i moved to arch cause i liked the idea of customizing my distro more from the ground up. Stayed with arch for 2 years, then i got the distro hop virus. Tried a lot of them, fedora, opensuse, ended up staying on Void linux for over a year in total. Now i’m using NixOS and very happy with it, and i think i’m finally settling down on a distro. I know LTT gets a lot of flack for how they handled the linux challenge, but if it wasn’t for that initial video back in 2020, i would have probably never given linux another try. And with valve investing so much into improving wine and dxvk and all that, it was viable for me to switch as a gamer.