I got bored with windows as well. I installed the 7 RC and was really impressed with it. It was easy and it was faster than vista..............and then I realized that it was still the same old windows really so I downloaded OpenSuse (which I had played with years ago), Knoppix, Ubuntu, and Mandriva.............tried them all and after several misstarts I am loving mandriva 2009.1_free_64 running kde4 with compiz on my desktop............it's gorgeous on a new high res monitor. On my laptop which I'm still tweaking I'm having fun trying different desktop environments to find a balance between performance and appearance. I like the fact that I can log out and log back in and everything is a different, but previously customized to my liking.

Just an aside here: my wife who is passionately anti-tech has had no problem satisfying her daily computing needs after asking, "which one is the internet." Linux has come a long way in the last 8 years. Thanks to everyone in the forums that have made this a much smoother process.

Honest answer - I DIDNT INSTALL LINUX Yet ...

n1
consider the question:
why would u install it?

I HATE the world of The Great Giant of OS M$ Products.. Really getting to know the World of Freedom of Linux. Linux has so much cool progs out the plus other great things. 1 great things is that there is really no threat of virus,maleware and other security issues as of yet. But as Linux gets more into the mainstream world. It be matter of time when somebody will figure out a way to get that crap in but really don't think it will ever happen that extreme like Windoze.

I was bored and Windows was limiting. I wanted to try something new. And I have seen the light.
The more I learned about Linux and *NIX in general, the more I disliked Windoze. I have come to dispise M$ and their business practices. They make crappy software and don't share.
With Linux and FOSS I can explore and learn without having to ask permission or pay anyone.

I was sitting on the floor of my buddies apartment 4 days after I pressed the off button on my cable tech career, smoking a cigarette, and wondering what would be the sinlge most entertaining thing I could do next might be.

Linux!

+ I hate MS windows, and I needed to reinstall the OS on my AAO anyway, after all the crap I had to put on it to work for the cable company (man, I had a real problem with the activation server they used. It forced the installation of spyware, if the install script actually worked. I volunteered my laptop for that task, as I had moral issues installing spyware on a customer's computer on behalf of my employer...)

[x] Because I wanted to be an elite hacker.
[x] For the <ladies>.
[x] For the street cred.

Yeah, I had almost forgot about the <ladies>.............HA! Have a good day!

Because it comes with the software I use and am accustomed to (seems this was not among the options). Formerly, in the early universe, I installed it because I could do that and because it was the only thing (that I could get) that offered me a (C) compiler for no charge.

Here are a few of my thoughts..

Security (No viruses) Viruses ain't the only thing that are involved in "security", there's a lot more to it.
Because of Speed. Speed of what? Linux won't make my CPU or memory chips any faster..
Just to try. This should probably read "out of interest", because hardly anyone does anything "just to try", not without interest.
Effects (Compiz, Beryl...). I wonder how many Mac owners spent their money for the effects?
Because its free. This could have been one reason..well, if it wasn't free of charge (for some versions), I might not have tried anyway.
Hate Windows, Mac. No.

There's some answering..one option could have been "because of the software it offered", that's what I would have checked.

It seems the "winning" option so far is "Because its free (sic)". In other words, it is not the case that Linux is technically superior to various other (commercial or not) operating systems, it's that it costs no money. Perhaps every Linux user should ask herself: should all operating systems/software in general be free of charge - what would I use? If the answer is "Windows", chances are you should T || GTFO and thanks for all the fish. I am reminded of "Linux is for people who hate Microsoft/Windows, BSD is for people who love UNIX" - or something.

Couldn't tell if that was sarcasm or not.... for example this computer is much faster with slackware/fluxbox than vista. Its because of the overhead and the coding, not the cpu ticks. If you write a code that takes 1/2 the cpu instructions as the competitor then yes, it just made your cpu twice as fast.

then u said
loool