When did you start working around with Linux?
Yes, im doing le funy Meme. And yes, I am an autist, with some signs towards something adhd adjacent
I first tried Linux Mint when I was 12, eventually changed to Ubuntu when I was 13 or 14 because I saw the Windows 11 copilot button, installed arch at late 14, and got to gentoo when I was 15.
Can anyone beat me to it?
I think I tried DamnSmallLinux in a VM around like 2008 or something which I thought was really cool, then I tried Fedora which I didn't really like, then I tried Ubuntu which I really liked and still do, although I'm going to switch to Mint at some point because I prefer the idea of having a community-owned distro.
I messed around with Linspire in the early 2000s after seeing a segment about it on The Screen Savers (on TechTV). It was about Microsoft suing them for originally calling the OS "Lindows", so called because it was among the first OSes designed to attract people who are used to Windows.
I believe that it was among the first distros to induce the concept of app stores to Linux, and since I couldn't figure out how tar.gz files worked at the time, it sounded like a good idea to me. Used it for about a year or three, before moving onto Ubuntu for many years then eventually Arch.
And now I'm back on Windows again because I bought an HDR display and learned the hard way that Linux has terrible support for it. Can't get the HDR intensity slider to work properly in KDE, and there's no SDR-to-HDR conversion at all in Linux, which means no AutoHDR and no RTX HDR. So in the meantime I'm dual booting Win11 and Arch, but I find myself using Windows more and more because it's HDR support keeps getting better and better, especially if you have an nVidia GPU.
2002, I was 11. My dad had bunch of Linux install CDs that came with Dr. Dobbs. I fucked up my XP MBR and asked him to bring home a XP install disk cause i lost all mine.
By the time he got home I had installed Mandrake Dolphin Linux on my PC.
I’ve started with lubuntu 11.10 on a Pentium 4. I was 11. Time flies!
Built my first PC in High School from scraps. Decided to try Ubuntu 10.04 (current at the time).
I was very impressed with how much performance a free OS could get out of my awful hardware. Have been using Linux in some form as my OS ever since.
My son's first computer was Linux. ;) He was still toddling but wanted to hit my computer, so I set up an old one for him.
I was 14 in 1991 I should add. I switched from minix not long after I could get Linux to boot. I think that was actually 1992. Both the computer and Linux weren't very good back then ..
I have a physical CD of Ubuntu 6.10, back then they were distributing those over the mail and a friend of mine ordered some and gave me. I still keep it.
Here's what I started with. The release of Windows 95 lured me away from Amiga, but as the Amiga was a very customisable environment, I had this for an escape plan :D
In the Amiga days I was ridiculously lucky and bagged a Silicon Graphics Indy system for pennies, so Unix was no stranger at this point.
Cool, no, not my version but very close to it...
About the time that Windows 10 came out. I was just messing around and ended up liking it.
a month ago, never goin back...so much power, so much free ram. im in love
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.
lol. This is my story as well, except I wrecked my XP MBR and the CD was in Dr. Dobbs that my dad had a sub thru his work from. I was too impatient to wait for him to bring home an XP install CD.
I suspect that this is the story for most Linux users; windows failing at a critical need
That's how you do it. Waiting to drown but suddenly learning to fly :D
I was in 8th grade so 13-14 years old right?
I started using linux with dual boot in June 2024 where I installed Fedora/Fedora immutable kde and bazzite.
Tried GNOME on my brother's old Laptop but using Extensions for changing one thing(and breaking every update) was annoying
I have been using Fedora till I stumbled across CachyOS
I switched to Cinnamon around this time from KDE I found kde kinda Buggy (heard it's Nvidia or smth) and it just felt uncomfortable
Around December 2024 Where I used Linux full time (no windows dual boot) this is when I found Cachyos (or arch variants) and Cinnamon comfortable the only problem is that Cinnamon doesn't have Vrr,HDR and Wayland for me but I use Gamescope if I need vrr and HDR
I find cinnamon kind of useless
It just has this beige win 7 look, that is somehow both new and old at the same time. You dont have the Macros and Costumisation of Plasma, but you also dont have the rigidness and tablet-style interface of Gnome. You dont have the ressource friendlyness of xfce. The only thing it has is that it can both render qt and gtk in its own style, but xfce already does that with its very win xp like interface, which both qt and gtk have themes for
It just has this beige win 7 look, that is somehow both new and old at the same time. You dont have the Macros and Costumisation of Plasma, but you also dont have the rigidness and tablet-style interface of Gnome. You dont have the ressource friendlyness of xfce. The only thing it has is that it can both render qt and gtk in its own style, but xfce already does that with its very win xp like interface, which both qt and gtk have themes for
I agree with this kinda but I find Cinnamon more comfortable to use then Xfce but I could use xfce
Linux didn't exist until I was 25.
But are we talking earliest age, or length of time using it? I've been running Linux on PCs for over 30 years.
Yes, at least seeing a 50yo guy like me. We come from the 8bit world, there was no linux!
Been there! It was Avery different time.
The first program I wrote was in the Logo Turtle Game on an Apple Iie in 4th grade. Did some BASIC programming on the Apple IIe's building interpreter too.
I use Arduino boards with Atmega, Esp32/8266, and M0 chips on them for embedded projects. These $8 boards have more processing capability then my first desktop computer....
I started using Linux before you were born, but i also was 20, so you win😄
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>
Slackware. 1993.
I'm old lol.
Been through:
Slackware
Mandrake
Debian
Ubuntu
Redhat , old and new
Fedora
Arch
Knoppix
Pop!
CentOS
Enlightenment
Etc etc..
Right now I'm living on KDE Neon.
That button was announced January 2024.when I was 13 or 14 because I saw the Windows 11 copilot button
I think the first Linux I installed was probably Ubuntu somewhere around 5.04-6.06, I would have been about 15 at the time.
when I first heard about MS recall
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.
Yggdrasil somewhere around ‘93… maybe ‘94. Recompiling a kernel took a VERY long time.
I’ve been doing this a while.
as a teenager somewhere between 1996 and 1998.
Me too, Slackware - we're getting old aren't we?
Right behind you by a few years
My first laptop was an Ubuntu machine with no battery when I was 4. I had no idea what Linux was, I just played the games my uncle had pre-loaded onto it.
I have known about Linux pretty early on, roughly the age of 10 (almost 29 now), but didn't get to have a lot of tech interactions. It wasn't until around 2022/3 that I got Cybersecurity / DevOps certs (still can't get a job) and switched to Linux. I have a couple Chromebooks that run Ubuntu Studio and Lubuntu, a tower that used to run Garuda (Arch) and an old Mac that runs CachyOS. I'm more into Arch distros, but the amount of space on each comp and some hardware quirks make it difficult to run my faves. I gave my wife the Strix but she doesn't want to let me convert it to something other than the Windows 11 it runs. I'm still working on convincing her. Lol
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
In 2006 my university used Ubuntu, I thought 'Wow, this is different!' Tried it out on my own computer but I was a heavy gamer so windows was the best option (hey, Win7 pretty alright anyway!)
Fast forward to about 2022, I try it again but it's not getting incorporated well with my program usage in school (as a teacher).
Fast forward to 2024, worked out that Tencent software is on AUR (teacher in Mainland China) and I figure I'm doing another dive. So far, so good. Little itty bitty glitches especially with Libreoffice but I'm getting by without touching Win10.
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.
In University. In the 90s we used commercial un*x (HP-UX, IRIX, AIX, Solaris/SunOS, SCO) and some others like SVR4, BSD, Minix. Then a guy on usenet talked about making is own kernel running on a 386. My first real full linux install was kernel 0.99 on a 486DX50, around 1993, came in multiple floppies, then to install X11 that was like 10 more floppies! Configuring things was a bit nighmarish.
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.
about a decade ago i used to mess around with some debian based distros on dual boot, mostly as a toy
then used xenialpup for a bit when my drives got toasted
then used mint for a year ish as my daily driver before moving to arch which i've been on ever since
Purchased a copy of Redhat from compusa in 1997... never did get my modem working with it unfortunately,
Started with Ubuntu's initial 4.10 release back in '04. I wish I still had the Live CD they mailed me. When Ubuntu ditched Gnome for Unity I switched to Mint. Up until a few months ago I was dual-booting Windows alongside it, but with 10's EOL approaching I'm ditching it.
I do keep an old laptop running Win10 specifically for some Audio-related software I just can't get to work in Linux.
i thought i was old for lemmy till i saw the dates in these comments.
Caldera in 1999 or 2000 at home. RedHat and SuSE at work.
I got to cut my teeth on CP/M (not nix of course) on a Kaypro II thanks to my uncle. 1982. I owe him a lot for giving me a headstart on computing.
Commodore vic20 was my first, then a TRS80 with CP/M
I messed around trying to get Redhat 7.2 or 7.3 working but gave up (Q1 or Q2 2002). I later experimented with SuSe (or however it was stylised in Q1 2005), messed about with Knoppix and a few other distros, before properly going all-in on Ubuntu 5.04 when I was 18.
I installed Ubuntu in 2007 or so, but moved right after and got a new computer, so I didn't really do anything with it. I installed Peppermint 9 on a new laptop a few years before Windows 7 went EOL because it came with Windows 10 installed but couldn't actually run it. Ran great with Linux. When Windows 7 stopped getting security updates, I installed Peppermint on my desktop, too. After the man dev passed away, the project went it a different direction, so I switched to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. That was a few years ago. Still with it, still happy.
My dad had a Knoppix boot CD in a case with all the games, of course I messed with it as a curious child, I have no idea how old I was, but it was my first foray into the wonderful world of not Windows.
I had a Linux beginners class at my HS in 10th grade but I've forgot about Linux, until 12th grade when 2 of my really nerdie friends started shilling Linux to me, especially pointing out that now you can play windows games on Linux, and not too long after I eventually did the jump when starting my comp sci uni (19 years old) with Manjaro as a first, but I have found happiness in EndevaorOS due to Manjaro being unstable.
Fedora 2. It's been a while.
Back at the university, sometime around 1995 when I needed a Unix for the exams. Downloaded on 1.4 Mb floppies
Started with Ubuntu at 12. Did a LAN boot to my mom’s laptop somehow, I couldn’t explain it if I tried. It was supposed to be on my PC. Didn’t work in the end and got grounded for “hacking” went back to it though a few years later at 16 and dived around Ubuntu and Gentoo. Never installed gentoo but I certainly kept trying.
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 tried xubuntu when I was 14 on a live cd to get students admin access on our school laptops. Once I got my own machine, I kept it on windows 10 until it became unstable so I moved to Bunsenlabs, then Pop OS due to it's dgpu. (Intel igpu, amd dgpu)
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.
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.
I first tried Linux Mint when I was 12, eventually changed to Ubuntu when I was 13 or 14 because I saw the Windows 11 copilot button, installed
Can totally relate, lol. Except I first tried Ubuntu at around 12 (at the time it was considered the best for beginners), then nearly 20 years passed until I saw the same copilot button pop up, uninvited, in my task bar. That was the last straw for me.
Now I run OpenSUSE as a daily driver.
I was 7 when I first properly used Linux. My dad somehow found a prebuilt which came with SuSE - I assume version 7 or thereabouts. It didn't last long, sadly, before we switched over to Windows XP.
Then at age 14/15, I ran Ubuntu 10 as my daily driver on my netbook. Then #! for a bit.
Used Windows 7 and 10 until... I guess age 26/27 since that's what we're doing, when I switched to Debian full-time. (Via MX-Linux, which didn't quite work out)
#! Linux was amazing. So simple in the UI, but plenty of features if you wanted to set them up.
Only since last July. It's Arch btw. I love it, but wifey doesn't understand it and therefore I still have windows. ☹️
1997, it was a wonderous year 🥰 i was 16 at the time.
Linux came in big boxes with a large book and CD's!
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.
Mandrake 6, not quite twice as long since you were born?
I'd say I was around that age. Maybe earlier, 10? But only because my dad was into linux. This was back in 1998 to 2000 though. I wasn't actually allowed access to a computer's hardware (and therefore the ability to install an OS, given my extremely restricted access) until I started uni with an old computer that didn't even have onboard sound.
My first new computer was an Acer Aspire One netbook with Windows 7 starters. I quickly realized what “starter” meant and discovered Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Remix. The rest is history.
I bought that netbook, I actually have it sitting on the floor over here in a pile of e waste that won’t turn on anymore.
But I bought it with the intent to install Crunchbang which I ran on it until it died.
Started messing around with it some time in 2003, on Mandrake Linux when I was 21 years old. Experimented and ran servers with various distros in the years since but it didn't become my daily driver until about 2014-15, with Debian.