I am in New Zealand and a friend from France introduced me about 8 years ago to ubuntu. I discovered Linux Mint by looking on the net about 5 years and am still using Linux Mint 13 mate now.(Mint 17 on my laptop) love it! No more windows for me.
Regards, Johanna

Windows 8 OS and onward got me really annoyed. Then. Microsoft support annoyed me even further. Finally the hardware manufacturers annoyed me a just that little too much.

I sat back and watched a fight at a chimpanzee's tea party and they blamed each other for their lack of support.

Being the adventurous sort, I tried Linux out of sheer frustration and determination. Funnily enough, my problems disappeared on first boot.

I got hooked over a year ago and I'm not going back to either Mac or Microsoft. They can hoot and toot all they like. I've washed my hands now.

Something still tells me that I have a long way to go but, I think I will enjoy the ride.

Ubuntu, Mint $ Zorin, hooray!

Windows Vista was the last straw for me. I bought a (used) laptop that had Vista on it. It was functionally useless kept banging on the hard drive and overheating the processor. Tried to install XP on it but the wifi and sound wouldn't work and there were no drivers. This was 2006 or 2007, before Win 7 was out. Someone told me about Ubuntu Linux and how it could be run off a CD ROM. So I downloaded the iso and burned a CD. The laptop booted up quickly and EVERYTHING WORKED including the sound and wifi. Eventually I reformatted the hard drive and installed linux on it. Plus no more overheating or constant drive access and it was fast. I never looked back linux has done everything I ever needed it to and is so much easier to work with. Replaced the hard drive after 5-6 years. I was able to clone everything including the OS and boot info to a new drive (using linux tools) and go. No serial numbers or activation codes to get stressed out over. Not sorry I missed Windows 7 and 8. Now I look at the Windows 10 debacle and laugh. That computer still runs and I use it occasionally although I've since bought a newer one suitable for video editing. I'm using Linux Mint 17.2 and Kdenlive on that one. Love it!

First time I noticed it was back in 1992 or 1993, running from a diskette. I was a VaxVMS systemmangar then.
Later I tried it in 1996 with Wordperfect running on it.
The first real use in the sense of a smb server was in 2001 or 2002,
Since 2003 I used Suse and since 2005 (K)Ubuntu, it is still my main Desktop,
I prefer KDE.

Regards,
Jan

My Linux history.
 

First, I read about Linux in a Java book that instructed Linux users how to run Java in Linux. Then I read a book about constructed languages ( "In the Land of Invented Languages" if I correctly remember ) In that book, the author cited a Klingon-language enthusiast who used Linux and had a Linux bumper sticker. That stuck in my mind. Later, I heard that Windows XP would go out of extended support. A friend taught me his technique for using Linux to clone Windows. At that time, Linux Mint was up to version 15. But I had to use Mint 13 because my 32-bit single processor lacked PAE. After I finished my Windows cloning, Linux grew on me. I dual booted, shifting more and more to Linux. Now I single boot Linux, after getting my new computer April 29, 2015. I installed Mint 17.1 Cinnamon, May 1, 2015. It was a blank amd CybertronPc. My new computer now has Mint 17.3 KDE.

Started out using Lindows, quite a few years age.

Friend was an old sysad on unix/linux systems and a virus had killed my windows OS. He wiped the drive and then installed Fedora 5. Been a linux user ever since with one distro or another.

I can't remember the details. We're talking about the 1990s
 

I'd been developing embedded products since the mid 1980s using X86 and RTOS SW.
In the '90s ran into it. Late '90s developed an ARM powered product running Kadak's AMX RTOS (same OS that powered the Martian rover that worked ... and Palm OS, which isn't an OS, its just an APP running on AMX)
After that, dedicated the company to building computers powered by Linux on ARM.
Have run Linux exclusively on desktop/laptop computers for over a decade.
Took a small Chromebook to India on a 3 week trip last month, instead of a laptop.
And survived!

My brother insisted I should switch to Linux after I kept having crashes and the like. Also Xp was on the way out for support. I found Linux a bit confusing at first then I realized it was all about the packages which was great. I have just upgraded my laptop to Ubuntu 16.1 and although it took a while to do it's business, it came out fine. Have had a couple little issues but nothing resembling the problems of Windows.

Windows Yuck
 

I started with CPM and Unix then to DOS and from there, as everyone else in my company was using it, I started using Windows. I got more and more disappointed with Windows as it went from 3.1 to XP and 7 via Vista and Millenium.
Having now retired I can use whatever OS I like and having searched through the web I tried UBUNTU, didn't like the desktop, and moved on to Mint / Mate, which does every thing I need and is really easy to use.

MKS
 

It started with MKS toolkit in the late 80's if I remember right.

In the Fall of 1991 my University had decided that PCs were too slow for real work, so we were clearly going to have a campus-wide network of workstations and Xterminals where we would all happily be productive. They bought a bunch of IBM risc machines (using AIX -- the world's worst unix). They dumped one in my office, which I was supposed to learn how to use to revolutionize the teaching of calculus. I had tried to talk them into Next machines, since they were cooler, but that did not work out. Anyway, I needed something at home that worked similarly, especially after I had to bring the workstation back to the office. I looked around, and, just in time, linux was becoming usable. I had some help from a CS major at my university to set up a computer --- I had to dual-boot, starting with windows (3.1) then switching to linux, since linux back then could not deal with my video card. My first kernel was 0.96c (MCC-interim distribution), which means I got that running in the Summer of 1992 (I had to look that up). After a while I hacked through a way to set the timings (with no info from the manufacturer) so I could jettison Windows --- but maybe that wasn't such a great idea, since I ended up letting the genie out of the monitor --- I could see him drifting through the vents. Still, I never went back to windows. 24 years.

The calculus teaching was not exactly revolutionized (we did use Maple for a while, but students were not all that happy with it), but linux sure helped with writing math. TeX has always worked smoothly and well on unix boxes, and was back then just flat out horrible in Windows. That may have improved, but I no longer care. And we all know how ubiquitous IBM workstations are now. I think the University recycled them for the gold.

Required to learn some UNIX for my job in communications, saw how much it resembled Linux and made the change from Windows soon after.

How did I discover Linux?
 

I discovered Linux through my Amiga in 1990 or so. Some of the free software available for the Amiga were freeBSD and Minix. I installed those and began messing around compiling all sorts of scientific and mathematical software from researchers at colleges and universities. I am now running Ubuntu on a powerful desktop PC and have Windows 8.1 using Virtual Box for things that just have to be done in Windows :P .

Thanks,

Rick

Had an old Ubuntu DVD lying around from someone, got frustrated with Windows crashing all the time so got a book on Ubuntu from the library, installed Ubuntu on an old computer, and slowly started using it more than Windows. These days, I wouldn't think of using anything else on any of my computers.