I got disappointed with Windows after I found out that if you purchased a license for windows xp you could install it in only a single computer. The idea of an open source operating system therefore appealed to me. My first experience was with Ubuntu but I did not like the interface very much. Then I discovered Linux Mint and fell in love with it. I have used several versions of the program, 13, 15 and lately Mint 17.1 and 17.3, the Cinnamon version of the program. The need to use the terminal was a little bit challeging at the beginning but later on you get used to it. Greatest difficulty I've had so far with the program has been with printer installation. My laserjet all in one printer worked remarkable well for Mint 15 ( wireless connection). To use the printer with Mint 17.1 or 17.3 I had to install the HP plugin in each case, but altogether I have no complaints. I have used also other linux OSES but not on a regular basis.

I built my own H89 Heath kit in 1980 which used dos. I upgraded to linux in 1988 when I moved to Houston Texas and joined the HUG there, the largest user group in the world at the time. Redhat 7 and Mandrake were the usual versions at the time. I usually helped at the installfest on meeting nites. I have hated dos and windows since dos 1.0 and windows 1.5. I am using Ubuntu now and do not like it very much but it never crashes. I am using ubuntu now. I was trying to use Debian because under it all, it seems that most of the software is from the Debian files as their basis. Why not use the original source if you can?

I notice from several posts that some people seem to have discovered Linux before Torvalds did!

At the time I discovered linux I was working as a chemist. The research I was doing depended on experiments that ran for a reasonably long duration. The windows and apple boxes that we used for data acquisition tended to crash before the experiments finished. I wanted to get hold of a UNIX distro to run instead of the consumer OSs. I tried to obtain *BSD but could only find linux in Wollongong so I installed Slackware - back then it was a bit of a chore to get it to run. I could not find drivers for the data acquisition card that I was using and, so, reverted back to windows for a week. After yet another crash, I trashed windows, re-installed slackware, proceeded to write a driver and then ended up as a computer scientist. That was back in 1993 or 1994 and I have been using linux ever since. (My primary machine is Slackware, after all these years

It continued with MSDOS 5 and all the windows from 3.1 up to windows XP.
The crossing of the desert lasted some 13 years... With few limited incursions in the Unix world. But Unix was to costly to acquire and it could not run on just any hardware.
Then I discovered Caldera, together with it's video and audio drivers installation quirks.
And I loved working with those quirks!
I then learned of Linus Torvald, open source, Richard Stallman, GPL, etc.
I definitely adopted linux in 2002.
I then jumped on RedHat, and then Fedora, mandrake and Suse.
I have been on Debian for more than 10 years, starting with woody in 2004.

Hi,

I know my memory is not a good as when I was in my earlier years but I do try.

I've noticed a lot of typo/errors with dates for individual's original Gnu/Linux so look here if your memory is failing;Hope this helps the memory challenged!
Have fun & enjoy!

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Bought Redhat 5.2 at a bookstore in Reno, NV because the packaging was beautiful. Dual booted in with win 98. Now dedicated to U

I was just trying to fix Windows 7 and (fortunately) I got side-tracked.

Hi everyone, I was introduced to Linux by fellow user/friend who does coding and loved the privacy and lack of interference by the Windows/Microsoft mob. Other friends also endorsed this. Sure it wasn't easy for him to guide me through the downloading of the Debian 64 Jessie software and set it all up by phone, not being able to see my screen, but we got there in the end. Thanks for asking. TrinityBeing

A friend told me about Linux following a hard drive failure on my Windows laptop.
He suggested buying a new hard drive and installing Linux on it. He bragged about Linux to
the point I had unrealistic expectations and was very disappointed in my initial linux
experience, which was ubuntu 12.04.

I discovered Linux through the Internet back in 2000 and Linux sucked real bad back then. No drivers and no matter which distro you couldn't connect through dial up, no drivers but an over abundance of lame excuses, no sound, and in some cases loose video. Fast forward to Sept. 2015 I was looking to get away from Microsoft because of their Malware/Spyware which Microsoft wrongly named it Windows 10, which should have been named Windows NSA Edition. After watching Linux distros on YouTube I gave Linux an other try and it works. I have been using Linux exclusively ever since. MX-15 rocks.

I lived a block away from a Caldera office during college in ~1997. As I would drive by I wondered what is "Caldera". Wish I knew then that the SCO fiasco would happen. Perhaps a timely intervention would have helped? Doubtful and I am not sure worth the inevitable space/time continuum rifts. :->

I remember spending a lot of time figuring out how to get my graphics card to work with X11. I ended up just buying a supported card. I still have to do that to some extent today.

I've been on Linux (Ubuntu) approx four years, initially introduced by a very good ex professional Geek friend who is extremely anti MS. He became increasingly, as pro's do, frustrated with my slow (read dead stop) progress to grasp even the basic necessities of problem solving and, probably wisely, decided to cast me adrift to sink or swim on my own, Bu**er! Thing progressed easily for a while until I continually ignored warnings that my hard drive was filling up? Hastily deleting data never satisfied this indigestion. Eventually discovering the problem was too many updates installed within the Ubuntu operating partition. Problems then encountered using G parted so installed second 2TB HD but needed more knowledgeable help with initial set-up. Currently sailing along happily with 17.1 Mint, however, like most sail craft there are times when I need to change direction, to tack 'up-wind'. So far I've avoided 'choppy waters' but have need to check the charts (read; visit forum sites, even on occasions consulting Dr Google) problem is that I'm not brave enough to venture into 'Terminal' operation just yet as I cannot understand Geek talk and therefore have to wait for the 'English' version? I have to add that the times when things go right out-weigh the times of frustration when my machine refuses to answer my commands. This said I'm sticking with Linux and might even install the latest version of Ubuntu, Longfellow.

I think it was around 1998 when I was given a copy of TurboLinux 4.5 It had Xwindows but you had to manually install it, in text mode. At the time, while I was a computer tech I fought with it for a few hours, but knew almost nothing and the resources to find how to make it anything windows like were pretty scarce.
In 2001 I did come across a decent 32 bit ISO image of something that did install in Xwindows.
I burned copy of some cannot even remember name of Linux.
That best part of that is I used it for some public computers, because of the fact that it was so easy to install and could wipe the drive clean, as I wanted a clean slate computer for the public workstations. (For a freind running an Internet Company.

Shortly after that I then discovered MINT, and after now running like 10 other flavors of Linux I am back still with Mint 17.2 until XFCE has the upgrade out of beta as there is none yet.
(For other desktops but not XFCE).
Coming soon I hope.

I have garnered some tricks, and such that have taken me to a decent running system.
At some point I really need to print out a cheat sheet to a guide.

I only have maybe 2 very minor things. I tend now to run to GUI programs to get it working, as I am still glitchy on terminal based stuff.
Those 2 things are how to get Grub Customizer to give me a background image, I am close but think its gonna need some image in png and in 640x480 reolution to get that to work. Perhaps I can find some from the old BURG collections to put into it.
Second is how to get a loading Plymouth Screen, since using NVIDIA Proprietary only gives those little colored dots. I suppose the effort to change that is not worth the work really as it only shows for like 15 seconds at the most.

Beyond that Linux Mint is so far among the most stable, that still has a Windows 7 look and feel, but the task bar being light years ahead of Windows 10 in your ability to own it, and customize it to your liking.
So that is my Linux story, and only in the past 2 years have I finally come to understand some of the terminal comands to get around a little.
My goal to see Linux go mainstream is to have all the bugs worked out, for home users, and have an OOB experience that end users can be up and running, with Chrome/Chromium browser as a default, since FireFox still is never probably going to get the flash player code it deserves anytime soon.

I also cannot figure how to eliminate the ghosted printer, that it keeps seeing, I have a HP Laserjet P1102W which is tricky to install in any Linux, but they all seem to want to autodetect and install Laser printer that is not the HP and does not function. P1102W like others requires the HP-Lip proprietary plugin which sometimes gives you problems. Not a lot of concern as I have figured that one out.

Handling of USB flash drives remains sketchy at times, but is improving a lot.
There still seems to be a lot of apps that are not making it into official repositories and/or the software center. That app also needs help mainly in how slow it can get, and trying to get too many apps at once usually results in failure.
Those that have been there a while, also of course may not get version updates, and that remains a problem.

But overall I love Linux a great deal more than Windows which continues to have more glitches, in any version.

My life as a developer always had me buried in windows products. I got really fed up when MS felt they knew what I needed more than I knew so I tried Linux. I loved it but wasn't smart enough administration wise and it also took more "sticktoitivness" than I had to make things run smoothly so I went back to the evil empire. When someone asked why I stopped Linux I always had to answer that "I hate Microsoft Windows but I've never have to work very hard getting one box to talk to another."

Now, the teams are doing such a great job on the distros that even someone like me can do things and have it work out right.