I found a tome this sucker is 3.5 inches thick 1252 pages long "Red Hat LINUX 6 Unleashed"
for $5.00 brand new in a computer shop with red hat 6 install CDs
at a time when I was about to give up on computers as a hobby (after going from DOS to windbloze 95)
as I thumbed through the tome
I saw it had all the software I had been dreaming of getting BUT could not afford for M$

the information in this tome is still valid to this day
as often as not I will open it before coming here simply because it's faster

Well, in grad school, we had a VAX running unix, and i became the sys admin by default. i learned and loved emacs, writing code in FORTRAN (it was a while ago), elm, and playing rogue.

when i got my first job (college prof., electrical engineering, not computers) we all used windows. but, we had a motorolla 88000 pair of systems donated, and i learned more, but i was still using windows. eventually, i became the sole user and i installed TeX, gnuplot, and many other things. just imagine, a newbie, installing TeX from source on a machine with limited file name sizes. but TeX never changes, and i was tired of switching doc's between word and wordperfect. eventually, i found myself in front of a windows box, and only using it to open a window to a unix machine.

i used red hat, but then things changed too much. if i remember right, /etc/inittab was changed and that thru me for a loop, so i got slackware. So, i still use plain TeX (but some LaTeX), i calculated grades using awk for years, but recently switched to sc, and sometimes, our Tech support comes to me with questions. I help them, and they leave me and my computer systems alone (i.e., i'm never asked to switch to windows).

life is good with linux.

First I thought about using GNU because it's free of charge. But when I learned a little bit more about the system, I liked it better then Windows. And I can't say I "liked" Windows. I just used it. And I don't like everything about GNU, but for me GNU is definitely better then Windows.

I tried Mandriva, Mint, Ubuntu, Debian. Now I use Arch, it's the best GNU distro for me.

P. S. Why do we call GNU "Linux"? I don't even like calling it "GNU/Linux". It's like "pizza is based on bread; bread is the bottom of pizza, just like the core, there's no pizza without bread, why not call it pizza/bread or just simply bread?". Just thinking aloud, never mind. :)

Actually, GNU is the userland; Linux is the only thing that's in kernel space. But I agree, Mr. Alex: You do have a good point.

Because without the Linux kernel, GNU would be dead in the water (mostly because of RMS' fated decision that lead to the terrible Hurd kernel).

No, all the GNU stuff would still be usable in Windows: Cygwin, Msys + MinGW, GnuWin32, DJGPP, MSFU, etc.

True, but what use is that ? What kind of incentive is this to devs ? At least now, they are working towards a fully free, and great OS, not just a bunch of free programs on a proprietary OS that sucks.

Without the kernel you don't have a FLOSS OS, just some FLOSS programs.

True, without the Linux kernel we would be deep in the brown smelly stuff. It might have forced the GNU lot to get a move on, and have a rethink about their own kernel.

OTOH, where would the Linux kernel be without all the GNU tools?

It wouldn't be anything but a kernel. I think "GNU/Linux" is enough. Most of the time I just use "linux", and if RMS were standing next to me, he would probably choke-hold me until I fix it.

I also think that it should properly be called "GNU/Linux", but just "Linux" is fine for most cases, it's easier to say and people will understand.

Let me begin by saying that I'm a "casual" computer user. I use mine for researching mostly useless info, storing & listening to music, playing games, & pretending to be a writer. I do love email; it's saved me piles of money on long-distance phone calls to family & friends in far-away places, & the internet is terrific for making travel plans. However, most of what I use my computers for is fairly useless stuff.

I used WinXP for about six years. I thought it was fantastic compared to the only other systems I'd ever used (Commadore & Win-based computers at work dedicated to running machinery & processes).

I bought a cheap laptop with Vista & thought it was.. well.....okay. However, the laptop was used to play games on while I recovered from surgery away from home & to check email when I travel. One day I took it in to have a problem checked & while waiting for the "doctor" to diagnose the problem, I was looking at towers with Vista. Although my old desktop was working, my brain fell out & I bought a new one. I spend an hour or more a day on the desktop; the laptop spends most of it's time gathering dust.

There are no words to describe how much I loathed Vista once I had to use it regularly. It froze with frustrating frequency, crashed from time to time,& sometimes simply refused to do what I wanted it to. Especially annoying were the messages I got after being tossed off line ("IE is shutting down for no discernable reason. Sit there & twiddle your thumbs while someone at Microsoft pretends to care that there's a problem.")

After almost two years of wrestling Vista & losing, I started researching other operating systems. I stumbled across the "wubi" Ubuntu installer & decided to try it.

I loved Linux. IMO, it blows Windows out of the water. After playing with it & getting used to it for a few months, I bought "Ubuntu for Non-Geeks" & used the included CD to permanently install Ubuntu 10.04. I have a dual-boot system; I left some GB for windows for a few things that aren't Linux compatible, & gave the rest to Ubuntu. Although I gave my teen-aged nephew Win Office for his computer, he comes to my house to write school papers on Open Office.

The only thing I have a problem with is media players. I've tried all the players in the software catalog, & the only one that works at all is Rhythmbox, & that doesn't work correctly. Otherwise I'm a happy linux user.