Where, and when, did you start using Linux? Where are you now?
I started fairly recently (probably somewhere between nine and seven years ago; time isn’t my strong suit, cut me some slack) on Debian. Now I’m on Arch Linux.
I started to use Linux near the beggining of 2022, during my Programming Logic classes (my high school had a computing course alongside normal classes).
In the end of 2022 I switched my laptop from Windows to Xubuntu until the middle of 2023 where I switched to Arch linux and have no plans of moving away :)
Circa 1993, at the age of 13. Took me weeks to download Slackware from BBSs and get it installed. Played around with Mandrake (got an installer CD on an event). Eventually settled on Debian (which took me another few weeks to download, then burn the CDs and install it).
Used Debian on all my computers for many many years. Eventually got a MacBook (around 2005 IIRC) and have been on Mac laptops since. My gaming desktop runs Debian (wrote a blog post about my setup recently: https://blog.c10l.cc/09122023-debian-gaming). My servers, VMs and containers are usually Debian or something directly based on it (Devuan on some containers, Proxmox on my homelab’s bare metal).
I’ve used many other distros along the way, either for work or to experiment. I have huge respect for Fedora on a technical level but still prefer Debian’s philosophy and the apt ecosystem.
Oh boy. I definitely started with Ubuntu 17.04 in 2017 when I started uni, then soon downgraded to 16.04 because Unity was soooo much better than Gnome. But afterwards it's a blur, I was distrohopping basically every few months, sometimes even more often. I used Antergos (RIP), Manjaro, all flavors of Ubuntu except Gnome, Mint, then I was into the whole minimalistic tiling wm suckless no-systemd rabbit hole with Void, I also did KDE Neon at some point, I definitely did pure Arch as well, and Artix too. Sometimes I even hopped at work when I had a bit more time. God I miss those days...
Right now I've settled on Mint for work and Endeavor for personal use and haven't hopped for over a year which is as long as I've ever gone. I miss hopping but I'm so comfy right now. I've been thinking about finally giving Gentoo a go full time as I've been flirting with the idea forever. And there's also Nix. And I've been meaning to try a system where I fully embrace flatpak (right now I never use it). I'd also like to try something like Qubes eventually. So yeah, plenty to see still after all these years.
I started with RedHat 6.1, codenamed Cartman, on an i386. My god, the pain, the failed boots, the fail testing and source building by way of multi CD's provided through magazines. It was great
Now, many years later, after many, many different distros, after several immutable distros, I've ended up with NixOS, because I still like getting punished by my software.
Half a year ago I tried it but I have destroyed the system so bad, that even live usb wouldn't boot. Few months ago I have tried again, seems in time what was broken before got fixed by itself also I stuck with it this time and love using it.
Startet using Linux in 1999. Then I did a lot of distro hopping:
Redhat
Suse Linux
Gentoo
Sabayon Linux
Debian
Kdenlive
Arch
Ubuntu Studio
Fedora
Fedora Silverblue
since 2017 NixOS
NixOS feels very contemporary and will stay a while. It is very advanced and usable in many diverse environments.
In the past I did learn a lot installing and maintaining Debian and Arch – which has a great community.
About in 2008-2009. I was about 15 years old. One of my teachers installed ubuntu on school computers. Remember playing around with wobbly windows and desktop cube and having a blast.
I didn't use much linux at home though until college about 2013 when I put it on my laptops. Took until like 2018 to fully switch. I ditched the last windows VM with GPU passthrough when its boot drive died.
Ages ago, perhaps over 10 years ago (not keeping track because then I'll have to admit I'm getting older). I think it was because of the surprisingly common issue where wifi would just... Stop working in Windows. Installed Ubuntu and basically had fun tweaking it and learning Linux.
Then Windows 8 happened and everyone decided that they needed to change how everything worked to copy their example. Hopped between Unity, Gnome 3 and Gnome 2 for a while, looking for something that suited my tastes before eventually settling on Mint and Cinnamon.
4-5 years ago. Started because my one machine won't get security updates from Microsoft and my main machine isn't eligible for the Windows 11 update.
Started on Ubuntu and then did some heavy distro hopping. I've ended up preferring only 2 distros; Debian and Arch. There's plenty of others that I like but those are my top 2.
Started in Brazil, at home, in 1998, using Conectiva Linux (a Brazilian version of Red Hat on steroids); migrated to Slackware in 2000-2001, and then to Debian, in early 2003. Still using Debian in 2024! 🧡🫶🍺
I use Linux for everything, from desktops/multimedia/blender/daw/games (I used to play WoW on Linux back in 2004-2005; hahaha; was a pain to tune it + wine) to routers, to servers...
I loved my old Linux mobiles too (Nokia N900 & Nokia N9)! My N9 is still working (but I don't use it anymore)! 🧡
I started around 2018, using crouton to run Ubuntu on a Chromebook so I could have better functionality. I went back to Windows for a while, then I started using Pop!OS as my daily driver last year. I still don’t know if I love it, but I’m sticking with Linux of some flavor going forward.
I was about 13, parents were getting divorced, house was being shortsaled, mom had moved out already and took the main computer with her, dad got a really old Windows XP Dell laptop (had a red nubbin) from a friend to use, it ran so extremely slow on XP already (literally would take minutes to load a video and it was choppy doing just that) I knew Vista or 7 couldn't run on it so I looked online for other OSes that might work.
Landed on Linux mint, got that bad boy set up in my little sisters (now empty) room as it was in the corner where I could reach my neighbor friend's wifi. I watched so much Bleach/Naruto that summer lol
Luckily I had setup that neighbor friends wifi with DDWRT so I knew the pw :P