I don't remember exactly when I installed that first Mandrake 9 desktop, but I believe it was sometime in 2001. This means I'm just reaching my first decade, if counting from the first baby steps.

I swung back and forth with Windows for the first couple of years though, and only switched full-time after the Win machine gave up the ghost and I installed Debian on the replacement. So I've only been a true addict for about 8 years.

Edit: Looks like Mandrake 9 came out in 2002, so I guess I'm still about a year short of a decade. But to tell the truth, I can hardly remember my time before Linux. I feel like it's been with me all my life.

i have used linux about 9-10 years, im still a noobie

I first used Linux back around summer of 2000 and it's been my primary desktop OS since mid-2003. Like many here, I know my way around lots of the system, but I'm still a bit of a n00b in a lot of ways .

Roughly four years of steady use.

I probably also fall into that category.

10+

Started with slackware 8.x up until 10.x

Currently using Arch linux. Even though I have 10 years of linux, I am still learning and picking up tidbits because packages get more improved. In fact, I added new life to some of my shells scripts because bash gets better and better.

LOL nice .

i discovered linux like in 2010 the first distro i found was Knoppix lol i remember the days

But mh lol the funny thing is that i was googling for some windows xp live cd, and they were all stupid rapidshare links with rar files .,,

so i went to the knoppix download page and though i didnt like it i started learning about it and now though i am back to windows Linux is awesome and i virtualize it with vm player I got as far as using ubuntu like and debian based distros since i dont really understand much of that stuff anyways. I mean , i already know more about operating system stuff than the average 14 year old :P

Since 2002 - still a noob but learned a lot in the last few years after switching from 'buntu to debian.

Rough guesses:
*nix in general; since about 1995
Linux: about 1998-1999
Linux exclusively at home (ie no more MS): about 2002 (?)

Started trying with RedHat8, could never get it to work. Started properly with Ubuntu 7.04 a week after it was released, so I have been using Linux exclusively for nearly 4 1/2 years now.

Gosh, I've lost track of when I started using Linux. When was it that Slackware came on floppy disks, the Linux kernel version was "0.99 pl 57" or thereabouts, and your first task upon making a new installation was to build a kernel customized for your hardware (no such thing as kernel modules back then)?

Oh yes, and then you re-build the kernel because, once again, you forgot that the floppy disk driver did not default to "yes" in the configuration.

Started "using" (Live CD) mid '05 which led to my total conversion in early '06, It was the end of the "Windows" as I knew it, and I feel fine! Nothing but Linux since, Nothing but PCLinuxOS (LXDE currently) since mid '07. Prefer the "gooey", But will whip out a CLI if I need to.

Mandrake 9.2 in 2003, followed very quickly with Redhat 9, then onto Slackware 9.0/9.1

Started with unix in the early 80's.
Started Linux around '98 I think (Mandrake).
Started working with Debian around 2000.
Everyday user for about 4 years.

But I still consider myself a newbie with a bad case of PEBKAC

About 5 years now (since 2005).

I only started learning about linux because I knew a couple of the guys in a music channel on IRC that were using it, and I had huge amounts of time and nothing to do with it. So I thought why not learn a little bit about it, and I'll have a nice OS. I picked up a question-answer textbook from 'Thompson' publishers, 'Linux+ 2005' I think it was, and installed a distro (not knowing anything at all). I got most of the answers right, and it was a pleasure to read.

6 months distro-hoping, untill eventually I found Slackware, and I was dual booting Slack with XP for about a year untill I had a functioning internet-ready linux desktop. Then I went Slack full time. It was a strange experience at first, using slack as my day-to-day OS, and I still had bits and bobs to sort out, which Im still doing up to the present.

I pretty much put in at the very least 12 hours a week, messing around, trying different WM's, messing with console colours, learning how to use the command-line tools like mkisofs and cdtools to burn a disc from a script. I read a few more books, including one on the kernel, and one on scripting.

I havent spent much time learning about slack over the past year or so, I'd like to read more on scripting because I only have a basic understanding, but I know that to refine my desktop even further, and do some things I want to do to make day-to-day computing life easier, I will need more scripting. So thats what I hope to do next.

My wife and I started using Linux about 2 years ago, just because my laptop crashed just after the warrantee expired and I was NOT going to shell out for a new OS from billy boy and his band of thieves. BTW today I'm working on a Hackintosh that I put together.