My laptop with windows 10 shit the bed, it would let me type in my pin but get hung up on the spinny loady wheely thing never moving past that. I used a linux liveUSB to rescue my files from the disk, and while I was using it I noticed how my computer did things like “still work.” So I switched! Actually had two laptops at the same time I had to switch too, the other would let me log in but was bogged down and barely responsive, ran like a top for years but now I’m upgrading to a framework. The framework can probably run windows but it would’ve been like $200 more and like, why? I might just run a VM of WatermarkWindows for the few times I need it but really the only thing I need works in wine well enough.

It’s free, gratis and it’s fun to use and tweak.

I took a couple of in-person Linux courses when I was about 16-17. Teacher gave me a Kubuntu 6.06 CD to try at home.

A short time later I was using Ubuntu 8.04, 9.04, etc. and until last year I was on Ubuntu MATE 14.04 until I made a new MATE 20.04 install and I built a new main PC with MATE 22.04.

I really notice the difference in UI apps between Ubuntu and Debian, which I tried (and failed) to swich to several times already.

I’ve used and gave support to RHEL in a couple of jobs (graphical and non-grahpical)

I tried Linux in college because it was a hot thing there. Been hooked ever since.

I’m not a distro hopper. I used Debian Testing for many years. Last year I switched to NixOS because it was a compelling value proposition for me. I’m very happy with it!

I am an IT nerd so I use Linux to learn more about the OS and programming. This was the original reason and still is the reason I keep a Linux machine on hand. Current machine is a dual-boot LG Gram running Windows 11 (wanted to keep the original OS so just shrunk it) and Arch Linux. It runs on Arch 90% of the time. Really only boot the windows partition to use it for work.

I switched to Linux full time (I’d gone back and forth for a while) about 10 years ago when my XP laptop died.
I had access to Windows 7 via work, but I didn’t like how much telemetry was being sent back to MS…

I went into Linux because I saw some coworkers use it. I stayed in it because I fell in love with the ideals (while it also works at least just as well as propietary OSs).

That shows how important it is that you spread the word. Linux does not do advertising. It needs the community. I love that.

I guess in Linux you either go Ubuntu and stay Ubuntu… Or (like me) you hop for a year or so until you find out your place. (Generalisation)

My fav is Arch Linux. Endeavour OS for easier install of Arch Linux. I haven’t found anything better for personal computers. For work, the choice is clearly Debian for me, because Debian.

I chose it for development reasons. I kind of fell into a decent career but one I didn’t enjoy and was tied to a specific geographic region. So, I was learning to code and my coworkers who wrote code were using Linux and all our servers were CentOS (or maybe WhiteHat or whatever it was called then). So, I installed Fedora Core 4 — I’m old — and liked it better than Windows. I loved being able to customize everything.

Eventually, I learned the philosophical reasons for open source after I got into it but they matched my personal beliefs so that was no issue.

I used to distro hop frequently and I’ve probably tried all the major distros at least once but after awhile, I began to just stick to Fedora or Ubuntu LTS for servers (and I guess Arch on Steam Deck, Raspbian on the Raspberry Pi, etc.). I like Vanilla Gnome nowadays and when I want to see a new distro, I just check it out in a VM.

I think Chrunchbang (R.I.P.) was my favorite distro when I was all-in on distro hopping and customizing everything. But at some point for a developer, your OS becomes more of a tool for opening an IDE and/or terminal and you value stability over customization or having the very latest software. In the Flatpak era, that’s even more true since you can run the newest versions regardless of the system.

I quickly fell partly into the Linux and open source rabbit hole.

So far I have tried small amount of distros on VMs, and the only distros I’ve run outside of VM and outside of my IT classes I’ve gone through so far would be Ubuntu on a very crappy laptop, and MX Linux on my current laptop. So far, MX with KDE Plasma 5.x (don’t remember the specific version) is my favorite distro.

Partly for freedom, partly for free software, partly for tinkering opportunities. I broke some installs before I started thinking of Linux as my daily driver.

I’ve tried Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, Puppy (and then Fatdog), Knoppix, Rasbian, Xandros, Damn Small Linux, Tiny Core, Arch and Endeavour, but Mint is my favourite. It’s never failed to just work.

It was and still is a few things: Mostly the cool factor. It’s different, does what I tell it (safety be damned lol ).

Security: Mostly sane defaults (like not making the initial user with full admin rights).

In the early days, a major factor was being poorer, constantly rebuilding Frankenstein PCs that would trip Ms activation crap. And with so many used parts, performance was better too.

Excel wouldn’t stop converting sku numbers to date formats. IT guy was excited to share an “easy fix” for that with Open Office…

When I saw his genuine excitement as he described Linux, plus the security it provided I realized, if I ran Linux I’d have the best support in the company. And I did.

I eventually had to move on from Linux at work after 10yrs or so but it’s all I run at home.

All because of Excel and those fucking date codes. Which yes, Open Office solved as advertised.

And yes I know you don’t need Linux for that but it was a long time ago.

I first got into Linux because I was a kid with an old hand-me-down laptop that was meant to run Windows 98 but I somehow stuffed Windows XP on there (it had a 4gb HDD and it was filled to the brim, I’m shocked in hindsight that it actually installed). Then I discovered Ubuntu (I think version 6.06?) and installed it, and it ran great! Once I got newer computers I ended up using Windows primarily but usually had a Linux PC kicking around. In college I started dual booting my main machine since Linux proved to be useful for my courses (Computer Science). Then I built a PC and just installed Windows 10 on it, but now that my 7th gen Intel CPU is “too old” to run Windows 11, I said screw it and installed Linux again. Plus I just really like having a bash shell natively, and a proper package manager is really nice.

Mostly because windows kept bothering me by breaking or changing something every single dn update so I jumped ship and have been pretty happy. Now windows only gets used for certain things I don’t feel like configuring my normal system for.

I don’t care about Linux. I care about freedom. It just so happens that the best free software operating systems are built on Linux, so that’s what I use.

I use GNU Guix System on my desktop, laptop, and server machines. I use LineageOS on my mobile devices, although sometimes I wish I could use Mobian or even Guix System instead. I do have a Pinephone with Mobian but it’s collecting dust and the battery is swollen so I can’t use it anyway. I also have a router running OpenWRT.

I used to use Debian until 2019, Trisquel until 2014, and Ubuntu until 2010. When I was something of a kid I played around with a Knoppix live CD, which was my first taste of GNU/Linux.

Being a geek, I have tried many linux distros (I’ve been using Linux since 1998, on and off). Curiosity was what was driving my usage of it.

In the early 2000s, when I used to write for OSNews.com (second only to Slashdot for OS tech news back then), I really didn’t find any distro polished enough to be a daily driver for me. Red Hat was big at the time, but even when ubuntu came around, it was still not as polished as it is today. These days, I’m using Debian-Testing mostly, however I concede that the best distro for newbies (and for me really, I’m too old now to be tinkering) is Linux Mint (flagship version). Mint really is well-thought out for daily usage. It might not have the latest tech innovation in it, or be bold with its choices, but it just works 99% of the time.

As time has gone by, and seen corporations taking everything for themselves (via enshittification), I have stopped using Linux because it was the geeky/cool thing to do, but I started using it because it frees me from all the spyware, and corporation agendas. Back in the 2000s, when I was a news editor for foss matters, I was mostly siding with the BSD license side of things (and mit/apache/ etc). I felt that the GPL was too restrictive, and that we should allow innovation take its course as it wants to. Now, that I’ve lost all my faith in corporations doing the right (smart) thing, I’m now a GPL3/AGPL type of a gal. The more “restrictively open” something can be, the better. Don’t allow anyone to manipulate you, or use you, or take away your data etc.