In 1995, we needed a cheap replacement for the expensive X-terminals at that time,so I started to play with the early versions of Slackware from a set of floppies on PCs and quickly replaced the X-terms.

I like the flexabilty of Linux
 

Yes, I started in around 2002 buying a used computer from an ad. I found it a bit tuff and very unfriendly but over the years experimenting with different distros, I really like it. I really hate it when someone tells me that the thing I paid for, is not really mine, and I can not just give it away, nor can I change anything about it in any way. I have been a carpenter for over thirty years and can you imagine what it would be like to tell someone that the house they paid for is not really theirs unless they wanted to pay a very high price to even just give it away? Or maybe that car you have been customizing and getting ready to sell it, but then all of a sudden someone came to you named Ford and sued your ass off because that was not your intellectual property to do anything with, even to give it to your son or daughter without paying more for the thing you already paid for. In certain parts of the east coast and Chicago, they might call that strong-arming. I'm just waiting for Linux to sue the crap out of MS for their using open source code in their systems. Sure I know pissing against the wind is a messing thing to do. It boils down to one thing I am slowly changing over to Linux, I am about 75% right now, not because it is too difficult, just because I do not have a lot of time to learn a lot of commands and code. One thing is for sure, I am walking forward, and am learning. Sorry for the long story. I will try to keep it shorter next time.

Around 1995, but not sure of the exact year. I've owned a variety of desktop PC's. Most of them I put the pieces into a case myself. But one I didn't; I bought it complete with MS-Win '95 already installed. I believe that was the first machine into which I installed Linux.

You don't need to learn commands to use Linux if you chose certain distros. I use MX Linux and I am command line illiterate. I could never make sense of the commands no matter how hard I try.

I think around 2004 with the release of Ubuntu was when I really started to get into it, been on and off since then but a lot more recently what with the Windows 10 / 11 mess, and the big improvements to Linux gaming, I now only boot Windows for the odd game that refuses to work.

This year, 2021

(I had previously installed Lubuntu on a netbook around 2010. but, it doesn't really count since I barely used it)

1994 Debian.

Was using HP-UX from about 1985 though (A sysV flavour) and doing email and reading usenet on a twice daily 1200bps then 2400pbs link upstream.

Meet Linus on is AUS trip and yes one of the ones that got him a beer. He was polite about that.

In 1986, I went to school to learn Unix to support the Calcomp cad system.
Later came training in System V, SCO and HP-UX.

2010: Finally got fed up with not being able to install Win2000 on an old Compaq machine and downloaded Ubuntu when they touted a user manual for version 10.04.
It just worked - mostly.

My very next build was Mint13 Mate and it really works. I have no further use for Windows.

Tried to get Slack 3.4 running in 1997 but failed. Got 4.0 up early 1998.

If Unix counts, 1978. However, I installed my first Linux operating system on a 2005 hp laptop in 2010.

Around 2005. Like I've read on a previous on this thread, I had a first very brief experience in the early 2000s trying a distro (I think it was SUSE) from a magazine CD. Once I got to the command line, I didn't know what to do, so it was just a one day thing. Around 2004, a friend of mine introduced me to RedHat and it was the first time I installed one on my computer, but I barely used it. It was just a curiousity, but a year later I came to know Ubuntu and it felt much more user friendly. I managed to get it to connect to the Internet (which I hadn't been able to do before because there was a so-called "win-modem" at home). I bought an Ethernet modem-router and with that, I felt I could do much more with the OS. From that point, I never stopped using it and it quickly became my primary OS. Before that, it was DOS. I never wanted to use Windows as a primary OS.

Slackware in 1998

When I started using Linux
 

Hi Folks,

I started using Linux about 1996. I've used Red Hat, Mandrake, Suse, and Gentoo. I lost my Gentoo install when my Hard drive failed, and took a break from Linux about 2005. Just installed ubuntu 20.02.2.0 amd 64 about three weeks ago and love it. Everything worked right off the bat. Wireless, touch screen. I don't use the touch screen, I just think that is silly but it works. I have disabled the touchpad in favor of a real mouse.

Running on a 7 year old HP notebook. HP ENVY Touchsmart. AMD 64 with 6 gig of ram and 750 gig of disk.

May the force be with you,
--glenn

I started in 2018
 

Before I retired, a co-worker had mentioned to me that I should check out the Ubuntu Distro of Linux. I, of course, ignored him, since he said that my brand-x software wouldn't work on it. Then, after retirement, my brand-x OS became completely corrupted when I tried to upgrade to brand-x 10. Since the computer no longer worked, and since I had read an article about getting a recovery USB for brand-x at a price I was unwilling to pay, I remembered what I had heard about Ubuntu, that it was free of charge. I borrowed someone else's computer, downloaded Ubuntu, made a USB installer, and loaded Ubuntu into my defunct computer. I've been using it ever since.