How did you discover Linux?

[NYbill]

There were a lot of interesting stories in this thread a while back and I see that it is now 13 pages long.

ah, there it is... i knew we talked about all this way back when. and i didn't want to type it all out again.

[mdominick]

I discovered Linux, because I need a live CD to recover files on a broken Windows System. I think the distro I used was Slax, but I'm not entirely sure. Anyway, after my few hours with Slax, I knew that there was more to computing than Windows and Mac and wanted to learn more. I began using Linux (Ubuntu) as my main system shortly after.

[kevie]

I discovered Linux from one of my mates who was good at modding consoles. After putting the Xecuter 3 chip in my still shiny xbox (2002) he then asked if I wanted just a simple OS on my system (play game/turn off) or a Linux system. At the time I only wanted to play games so went for the simple option, but I did ask what Linux was. He said that it was an operating system, an alternative to windoze, (at the time I thought the only alternative was mac).

A couple of years later, after a few virus got on my system from kazaa, I started reading a bit about Linux, but never took the plunge. In January 2008 I received another friendly virus, this time through Limewire that resulted in several people attempting to recover my system I was unable to do anything. At this point I decided that I needed to get a new OS, I had enough of windoze, even with paid security I was still getting viruses through downloads and had read that this was not so much of an issue in Linux.

I knew from my reading that there were loads of flavours, but where did I start? I loaded up Google and typed "which Linux" hoping that this would help and sure enough there was an online questionaire that picked SUSE as my distro of choice. I installed it onto an old laptop, but struggled to get some of the hardware configured. After several attempts and a lot of hints from the forums I was told to try Ubuntu, Linux Format had a special mag on that month on migrating from windoze to Linux. This was very easy to read and set up on my system and started me properly using Linux, windows was installed on another partition, however rarely used.

After getting a new computer in July 09 I did not put windoze onto any partitions at all. I have never regretted that decision as I built the pc myself it has never had any microsoft products on it

[Beany]

After listening to the current [132] podcast, I'm quite chuffed that this thread [and by association, me] got a mention.

And that's the first time I have been mentioned for reasons not related to making subversive, or just plain depraved comments during the live show on IRC.

And ironically, I missed the live show on Monday.

Rod, I was thinking that the welcome thread was a bit similar [although I didn't see the 'first linux distro' thread when I searched] but that perhaps this thread could be a bit more indepth, perhaps to users who have been here a bit. I'll peruse the thread you linked to though

Hopefully my next mention [SAY MY NAME!] will be for the usual subversive and depraved reasons.

[windigo]

I discovered Linux from one of my mates who was good at modding consoles. After putting the Xecuter 3 chip in my still shiny xbox (2002) he then asked if I wanted just a simple OS on my system (play game/turn off) or a Linux system. At the time I only wanted to play games so went for the simple option, but I did ask what Linux was. He said that it was an operating system, an alternative to windoze, (at the time I thought the only alternative was mac).

A couple of years later, after a few virus got on my system from kazaa, I started reading a bit about Linux, but never took the plunge. In January 2008 I received another friendly virus, this time through Limewire that resulted in several people attempting to recover my system I was unable to do anything. At this point I decided that I needed to get a new OS, I had enough of windoze, even with paid security I was still getting viruses through downloads and had read that this was not so much of an issue in Linux.

I knew from my reading that there were loads of flavours, but where did I start? I loaded up Google and typed "which Linux" hoping that this would help and sure enough there was an online questionaire that picked SUSE as my distro of choice. I installed it onto an old laptop, but struggled to get some of the hardware configured. After several attempts and a lot of hints from the forums I was told to try Ubuntu, Linux Format had a special mag on that month on migrating from windoze to Linux. This was very easy to read and set up on my system and started me properly using Linux, windows was installed on another partition, however rarely used.

After getting a new computer in July 09 I did not put windoze onto any partitions at all. I have never regretted that decision as I built the pc myself it has never had any microsoft products on it

Ah, the first untainted computer; always a wonderful feeling! Welcome to the forums!

[windigo]

Hopefully my next mention [SAY MY NAME!] will be for the usual subversive and depraved reasons.

Always good to shoot for the stars!

Good luck out-depraving everyone else in the IRC, though. Especially if sleepynate's around. I'm pretty sure he comprised the most offensive sentence known to man during the sexism show...

[x1101]

Ah, the first untainted computer; always a wonderful feeling! Welcome to the forums!

I plan on build mine this summer. My Netbook _almost_ counts as it never booted Windows, but it came with xp home installed, so its still a convert.

[crabbypup]

a while ago my dad gave me a duron 2200+ (1.2ghz) machine with 512mb of ram. he had been using OS/2 WARP on it, i removed os2 and put on (cracked) XP for my brother to use to play games. after he stopped using the machine because i was always on it (monopolization LOL), i started tweaking it and inevitably wrecked the partition. my uncle suggested i take a look at ubuntu (8.04 at the time) i kinda liked it, and used it for a while, but i did something and it stopped booting . i had a look at puppylinux because it was small and wouldn't take 10 hours to download on our limited connection. i ran it off a flash drive for the longest time, using it at school to avoid the inadequacy of windows on the poor spec machines. i started tweaking my flash drive puppy to make it look mac-like (i thought it was cool at the time). i played around with freespire for a summer, checked out newer ubuntu releases, just general distro hopping. i eventually got a laptop (last year) with an athlon X2 QL-60. it came with vista. i got rid of the recovery partition and installed ubuntu to dual boot. a month later i killed vista by accidednt and reinstalled it. when the new copy died i gave up and moved back to distro hopping. i went through sabayon, ubuntu 9.04, pclinux OS 2007, and settled on mint 7 (at the time). i run a business that does linux installation and migration for people that have never heard of or seen linux before, and have done so for just over a year. i also do windows installations, but by the numbers: linux installation last year: 9, windows installations last year: 3.

only one of those linux machines is no longer running linux, and the owner threw out the machine shortly after (it was a compaq armada with a p3).

i am also in talks with the principal of our school to possibly switch the school over completely to FOSS. unfortunately the board has other ideas.

[Soapy_Illusions]

To kick my horrible gaming habit... Ubuntu was just the distro I found when I googled it

And have since become a Computer Science student, running 95% of the time on linux

Will never look back

p.s. that 5% is for tech support

[djhyland]

I found out about Linux in 2000 or 2001, when my sister installed one of the Red Hat releases on her computer. She had been introduced to some sort of Unix while doing a summer job for the UW's physics department, and was excited enough about it to try Linux at home on the recommendation of a coworker. To my great shame, I didn't get into it then, since Windows was "good enough" for me, and I might want to play some games, and heard I couldn't do that with Linux.

I maintained such an attitude until early 2007, when I got pissed off enough at Vista and Microsoft in general that I decided enough is enough. My boss had been using Ubuntu (Edgy and Fiesty, I think) for a while, and told me to try those, but I went with Fedora Core 6 as that's what a friend of mine helped me set up on my computer. I dual booted for a little while, and finally decided to wipe Windows when Ubuntu released Gutsy. (While I liked Fedora better than Ubuntu, I could set up Gutsy all on my own, since it would take care of the Broadcom drivers for me.)

So, two and a half years later, here I am. My sister still gives me the "I told you so" gloat once in a while, and generally denigrates my Gentoo install as "too easy" (she's running Linux from Scratch), but I'm grateful to her for telling me about Linux all those years ago.