One of the things I think about is this: Does how a person got to Linux really say what kind of Linux user they will be?

For me, Linux was a live distro thing, but it really came about from having used Windows XP. So, to me, I think my beginnings were in using Linux for emergency purposes rather than using the kernel for an actual OS. I did get a free copy of SUSE in person when I was in high school (2005), but I never went far with understanding it.

I do not think so. I believe it all comes down to the desire. People who want to know it and dive into it head first are going to go further then the ones who install a live CD and then just run with that. I truly believe the people using Gentoo or a similar variant are better Linux users then us that use binary builds or do not compile our own software. Same could be said for those that customize their kernels as they need a deeper understanding of the system.

I will say Linux users are better in touch with their system than Windows users. with windows there isn't any real thought put into what you are doing on the system. It either works or the system doesn't allow you to use it. There is no real hacking to figure out why something doesn't work like in Linux.

I agree that it comes down to desire. I disagree with the part about binary vs. Gentoo & similar. I've used the "expert" distro's before. The reason I don't isn't because they're HARDER, but because, at least in Gentoo's case, it just takes TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO long to do updates. I don't got time for all that WAITING, as I'm not a millionaire, and my systems DO NOT run 24/7. They run while I check my email, check the scores, then get turned back off. Doubly with 64-bit, I don't see enough (or any) performance advantage of compiling from source compared to installing binaries. Sure, 15 years ago when everything was 32-bit and you had some compiled for 386, others for 686, I'll say yes there was, but now? Not that I can see. Definitely not enough to warrant how slow it is to update IMO. Now, nothing against Gentoo, it's a good distro if you're willing to put up with the waiting. I'm simply not. Similar reason to Slackware. Great distribution, but doesn't fit my wants. I LIKE automated dependency resolution. So I use distro's that give that to me. I've ran Slackware before, have no issues with it. But I don't prefer it.

I never had Windows: my sequence was CP/M, MS/DOS, QDOS, Linux. On the basis of your theory, having come from CLI interfaces, I should be a CLI fan with a liking for hands-on distros, and I'm definitely not.

Linux is DOS on steroids.

In my case OPs assumption is right on the money as I suppose it was inevitable that I would wind up on Linux and even more specifically, Slackware. I started with MS-DOS and played with several other DOSes. While by today's standards it doesn't really qualify I consider my first GUI to be PCTools PCShell. Shortly thereafter I bought OS/2 2.0, then 2.1, then Warp 3 and Warp 4 but by the time OS/2 WSeB came out I already saw the writing on the wall that IBM wanted out, so, while continuing to use Warp 4 as my main, I pirated a copy of WSeB just to see what it offered. It was good enough that I tried the eComStation demo but by then I had already moved on to Linux. WSeB came out at a time when emx libraries made it possible to run an Enlightenment Desktop on OS/2 and that was all I needed to see.

While using OS/2 2.1 I bought a used hard drive that still had Windows 3.11 WFW so I played with it some. Looking back Warp 3 and 4 were so superb I really can't recall why I paid for a Win 95 license but MS saw to it I never gave them another dime when within a few months of buying/leasing Win 95 I discovered I needed one 34KB dll file to enable the AGP interface. I tried to locate the file to download and when I couldn't I called Microsoft who told me I could purchase the file for $50.00 USD...... but.... why didn't I just pay $80.00 USD for Win 98? That's when I got serious about Linux.

I started with Mandrake but a system upgrade borked the whole system so I asked in Linux channels at IRC what was the recommended distro by those I respected most. An interesting expansion of the term "Vanilla" was repeated by many users along the lines of "It just compiles stuff right". It was to be Slackware then and in less than a year it became my main OpSys. That was roughly circa 2000 and it still is today. It has never let me down or prevented me from owning my PC.

Since OS/2 was designed to run on all levels of computers from mainframes to soho desktops, within just a very few limitations, it didn't assume how I wanted to run my OpSys nor attempt to force me into some mold. Slackware simply removed those few limitations and allows me to make it completely mine with no butlers underfoot. I'm happy.

Not sure. I am a pretty flaky loosey goosey computer user who hated computers when they came out originally. Motorcycle parts got me into Linux. Hence. Not sure.

Edit: I never ran live. I felt like that was too limiting. Like wearing a condom running a operating system. I just dove in and made mistake after mistake after mistake till things settled down. Besides. My computers then were Pentium 1 with under 100MB of ram. Live was kinda impossible.

Kinda like riding motorcycles.

I got into linux because of one of it's myths of being a geek operating system. I'm no geek, but I was good at building computers and setting up simple networks. The linux shell was awesome, and not even microsoft with it's BILLIONS of dollars can't hold a candle against the linux bash shell.

I was hooked to linux and I cut the ball & chain of the windows desktop.

interesting question.
for me, i always had a flair for recycling things, hich evtl. extended to computers.
re-installing windows xp from scratch, starting to customize it (blackbox for windows!) - the change to linux evtl. became inevitable.
i am not an it professional.
i still like the grassroot idea, being able to do things myself instead of depending on $COMPANY.

i love the fact that linux is a global community effort. it is very important for me as a user.

How'd the correlation happen there?This is probably very apt as far as I'm concerned. I programmed on DOS, VAX, Unix, and eventually Linux. Windows or MAC were always just something you used and not something I had to tackle a technical challenge for my job.

I had a P1 Laptop that the hard drive died on. I bought a replacement drive. I needed a operating system to buy motorcycles and parts on ebay. I used my wifes computer to research a free operating system because I was not going to pay for a old Windows operating system. Windows 95 was the original operating system.
It was hard to install from what I was reading also. I am good at scouting before diving into any projects.

My mind set then was screw computers. But Ebay is OK. Money is only to be spent on motorcycles. Not computers. So I trip over Damn Small Linux 4.0 and Puppy Linux 2.14. Start buying stuff. Before that I used mail and catalogs like J & P cycles.

'I make money with my labor and the motorcycles, motorcycle parts I sell. Hence. I can afford to throw some chump change toward a better computer. By then I am more skilled using gnu/linux operating systems.

I still have that cheapo computer mindset as my links show. That media center. Glorified Shop radio.
The tower and crt came out of some other persons dumpster. Everything else came from goodwill or salvation army. My priorities are still motorcycles and beer when it comes to expenses.

Any New computer I buy goes to my wife. So I am chock full of gold stars from her. I get her old laptop in return. She is the one with the high horse power computers and is responsible for my 1st computer and showing me how to turn one on and go on the internet (back then it was dial up for us).

She is a die hard Windows user. I do not even know how to run Windows except for when I boot my Windows 10 laptop to tune motorcycles.

That is all I use Windows for. Nothing else. Hope you got where I am coming from. Makes one wonder how I even got any good at helping people out on this forum. But I live by the code of the road. You help me. I pay it forward when I can.

I guess I should also mention. My wife is the one who set it up so City Hall would give me all their old servers as they upgrade their systems. I document a lot of this over here.

If not for her. I would not even be posting or be a member on this forum. I do all of this on my break times or late at night drinking beer with the bros. I have portable computer towers on little wheeled stands that work wirelessly and have gnu/linux on them so they can game , or do whatever on them while I fix their bike or we are just chillin. They have no clue about computers and what they are using. Don't care much either.

I think that persons who come to Linux with a purpose more specific than just "trying Linux" might be more likely to stick with it, but I have no data to support that theory, other than a gut instinct that some purpose is better than no purpose.

I started using Linux because someone told me I could self-host my website with it and that sounded like a lot of fun. I had heard about this Linux thing, was curious, and suddenly had a reason (and a spare computer unexpected given to me by a coworker) to give it a whirl, but it was having a purpose that not only got me off square one, but also got me aggressively trying to learn stuff.

Six months later I took the (for me) ultimate plunge and installed it on my personal laptop, though the "family computer" stayed Windows because my son used that (and that's what gave me a purpose for learning basic Samba). Pretty much haven't looked back.

I was almost exactly the other way around. I was given an old computer with no hard drive. My dad got an old drive from his office, and I had heard that Linux was free. So I tried it, and later discovered that I could host a website (among other things) on it.

From there, I made a partition or 2 for Lubuntu at the end of my laptop's hard drive. In a few months, I had installed Arch.
When my uncle got me a new Windows 8 laptop, I decided to try to go to Linux full-time (because I couldn't stand 8, and 8.1 was only a minor improvement). Haven't looked back since.

The majority of my Linux knowledge has come from some form of me wondering "hey, can I do that?", looking it up, and trying to do it.

I think a lot of us are saying that we tinkered and would have that tendency, given the capability. No other OS allows that so freely as Linux does. Therefore those who are interested in spending some time to customize things enjoy Linux.

@frankbell: Too funny about Samba! Same reason I had to learn it.