Linux

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.

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.

I've been daily driving Ubuntu for at least 16 years. I miss when Ubuntu had Windows style Start Menus and barely functional entertainment software.

I don't care about specific distros, I chose Ubuntu because I liek purple

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)

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.

2005

Fedora Core 5

At some point in 2006, I switched to Ubuntu. Jumped to Debian after Canonical thought it would be cute to send our data to Jeff Bezos and show is ads.

Fuck Canonical.

Been on Debian ever since, except for 1 netbook that I keep using Kali - which I used in the Backtrack days.

I started using openSuSE full time on my laptop after the disastrous Windows 8 upgrade (it kept bluescreening and had problems suspending on that laptop.*), I guess I was 11 at the time.

But I’ve been messing around with Live CDs on my parents’ computer that came with a computer magazine my dad subscribed to for a while before that. I remember spending a lot of time in Knoppix specifically. Probably mostly playing the games that came on it.

* Windows 10 still has the same issues on it last time I checked lmao

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 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)

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

1997, it was a wonderous year 🥰 i was 16 at the time.

Linux came in big boxes with a large book and CD's!

Around 2014 I had hacker phase so I've installed BackTrack(Kali Linux), ofcourse I didn't knew a thing about Linux but hey it was a start :D

Since then I had dual boot with Windows until 2020 when Ubuntu 20.04 dropped and Windows never touched my computers again.

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 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?

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 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

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 started using Linux before you were born, but i also was 20, so you win😄

I first started Ubuntu as a minecraft server, then last year I actually started using it as a desktop.

I was always curious about this linux thing, from when I was in 7th grade, I only knew Kali linux then, and I thought one could hack anything if you had kali linux :), But I seriously started using linux in 10th grade, fell into the rabbit hole of ricing, and to this day still cant get over it although it has become more stable and I know what I am doing.

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.

Not really, i first used Linux in 2001 or 3... It's been some time. I think it was fedora 1. I was 21/3.

First installed Linux in 2008, Ubuntu 8.04 and started daily driving Ubuntu 10.04 in late 2010.

Since then I've used a lot of different distros, I'm now running mint.

In saying that, my son has only had Linux (and Chromebooks at school), I got him to help install his own system, he was 7 at the time.

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 remember quite well burning an Ubuntu 9.04 Live CD, and before that trying an ancient Knoppix Live CD that my dad had laying in a drawer. I must have been 15 back then.

I started robotics at 12, started linux aroumd the same time but had to use windows for the program used for robotics competitions,

Stopped attending them at 14 so started using arch right after that and used it for 6 years.

After that used gentoo for a year at 20, and now I'm 21 using nixos.

I also started selfhosting with linix vps-s at around the age of 18, with debian. And last week started to move all my server to nixos with nixos-anywhere and deploying the server with deploy-rs.

Might make a blogpost on my selfhosting journey and on how I use nixos for selfhosting. Haven't made a post since the start of the year.

Fedora 2. It's been a while.

when I was 13 or 14 because I saw the Windows 11 copilot button

That button was announced January 2024.

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.

Only since last July. It's Arch btw. I love it, but wifey doesn't understand it and therefore I still have windows. ☹️

Kudos gentoo colleague! Its the best distro all around.

I started when I was less than 18. It was some prehistoric redhat, like redhat 0.1 or such (joking, but really, it was the '90s)

Then around -can't remember- guess 18 or 19. It was Linux From Scratches because... Gentoo didn't exist back then...

Gentoo has been love at first sight and still today I only use gentoo everywhere. Servers, laptops, mediacenters....

I even ported gentoo on an android tablet 10 years ago.