I remember Linux being discussed by our local PC User Group early on (the operator of the group's BBS may have used it for the BBS) and suspect I was also seeing articles in PC Magazine. I remember picking up some packages (I think RedHat, Caldera, SUSE, PCLinux). While I had a dual boot system back then, it was 2009 when I really started using Linux. I built a computer with the plan being to have it dual boot Win Vista and Linux. Before opening the Vista package a Win7 preview was released. I tried install the preview, which always hung during installation. I was successful installing Linux distros and BSD distros but had frequent crashes. Eventually noticed memtest on one of the CDs and found out I had a bad memory module (replaced under warranty).

The Win Vista DVD is still shrink-wrapped.

Linux was a transition from UNIX at work; free, no expiring licenses to deal with on an oceanographic ship in the middle of nowhere.

Hi all...

The extremely short, abbreviated history...

Back in 2001, My father's son-in-law (from another marriage) introduced me to Red Hat 7.2 and gave me a copy. At the time, however, after installing it on a few systems and working with it a little, I found it too difficult and considered Linux not ready for regular use. That perception didn't change until I installed Ubuntu 10.04 on my laptop, after trying 5.10 and another version of Kubuntu prior to that.

Even though I went back to Windows XP later, Ubuntu 5.10 was really my "baptism by fire," so to speak. In the five months I used it exclusively between October 2006 to March, 2007, I learned a lot about Linux and how to work with the command line. That gave me the foundation of what I can do today (with Linux) and the help I can offer others.

Regards...

Initially worked on Spectrum Systems CEMS DAS 1998-2002 (as an I&E Tech, didn't really learn anything about how Linux worked, but it was a Unix DAS with X-Window for interacting with Windows NT), then nothing until home Windows XP pc crashed in 2010, so asked a friend for help fixing it, he suggested dual boot Ubuntu/XP. Got used to Ubuntu 11.04 so threw LM10 in the mix but pc was old couldn't upgrade past Ubuntu 11.04 so bought new pc installed LM12 host with XP as a VBox guest. Learned about MultiBoot and Unetbootin and messed around with bootable usb's and cd's. Then LM12 crashed for last time and son installed Arch on my new pc and was my Arch guru tech support for at least the first year but things changed for him and was like taking me out of a go-cart and putting me in the StarTrek Enterprise and saying "here's the keys".... ever since... but still managing to keep my Arch pc running since 2013 having survived several asteroid collisions and subsequent repairs (I love Arch Linux for a linux OS, still mess around in VBox and with portable live linux media, wish I could grasp it like my son did and does, he was contributing scripts on github within a year of learning linux and started over a year after me). I don't plan on switching from Arch any time soon and continue to run Win7pro64 and occasionally XP in VBox on the Arch host, + mess around with other linux distros in VBox. LQ.org is awesome too!!!

How did you discover Linux?

Bumped into a Unix at CMU in 1970, did other things with non-IBM mainframes (see brag on AskUbuntu link below), learned TECO managing a DecSystem-10, then Emacs (from the FSF). Avoided home computers (dial-up typewriters at 110 or even 134.5 baud, what fun!) until the Amiga (non-memory-protected "co-operative" multitasking). When Amiga died out, read Free Software Foundation propaganda AND Microsoft's EULA. Made the obvious choice. Started with Red Hat 6.2(?). Now run Ubuntu 14.04.05 on 4 computers at home, and support the community (IMHO) at http://askubuntu.com/users/25618/waltinator

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I got one to many virus' on my Win7 desktop in or about 2002. Couldn't afford a Mac. Started using Ubuntu. Had a severe learning curve, but in time I made it work. From about 2010 I've used one or more distros from the Debian strain. Tried several Red Hat distros, but can't seem get them to work. I am very satisfied with my Mint distro.

I probably first came across Linux back in 1999. A friend of mine was using Red Hat on one of the PCs in my Cisco networking class. As silly as it sounds, I think it was a transparent terminal that caught my attention. I guess I have a thing for the command line, which was really not that useful as your average desktop user back in the Win98 days. He used that machine to play Quake with us during down time.

I discovered Linux because I wanted a free, quality operating system to replace Windows 95, 98, etc.. I discovered Debian in the late 90's and my search was over, thank God!

I was introduced to Unix Sys III as an Engineering user in 1982, and became an administrator of a Xenix based board test machine in 1984. Went on from that to administer a Vax 11/780 (the benchmark 1 MIP machine) running BSD4.3 at the same company. The company held a Unix V7 source code license and I was able to take a test machine home that had full source code. 16 bit, but I learned a lot from that machine.

Moving forward I was the IT Manager for several software startups developing their software on multiple OS, originally SunOS, VMS, Apollo Domain/OS and even Pyramid Dual OS. I was responsible for porting our build tool sets to the various platforms. A couple of startups later FreeBSD was added to the mix, and eventually Linux, initially Redhat (not RHEL). Tested various distros including SuSe and Fedora.

My last company before I retired developed software product on Redhat Enterprise Linux which I supported, but also had Engineering servers on Fedora and Ubuntu.

As a side note I personally built an S100 computer around 1975 and owned an Apple II, 1984 Mac 512K, a Power Macintosh 7500 and worked at a company where the executives and managers (including me) used the Macintosh Powerbook. Currently have a MacbookPro 15" Retina Late 2013.

Somewhere in this timeline my home desktop transitioned from Windows to Linux. Initially Fedora for a few years and now Ubuntu 16.04.

Another aside, I am on xfinity and have an IPv6 router. Ubuntu, Mac OS X El Capitan and iOS 9 all support IPv6.

Jim

How Did You Discover Linux?

From memory, I came across a discussion on something called Red Hat Linux (Mandrake?) and took to reading about this M$oft rival. Well, the more I read, the more interested I became, as I was even then fed up with Windoze....so began a gradual drift to learning the basics of Linux - I am now 100% Linux Mint in my personal computer life.

This is a bit embarrassing to me. It has been so long I can't remember exactly how I got started. That was some 11 or 12 years ago. I started with Ubuntu and their free disks in the mail. I know I had to, "screw my courage to the breaking point', before I would try the Ubuntu distribution, "Warty Warhog". I do remember my strong dislike for the Microsoft Windows system. The cost, the failures, and the way they locked out other applications and accessories. I do a dual boot now, with Windows 10 and Ubuntu 16.04. I prefer Ubuntu but my wife prefers Windows. That is just one of many things we disagree on.

Been involved with computing since mid '60s. Military computers then. Mid '70s started to get involved with S100 PCs and CP/M. 1985 supporting dealers with IBM PCs and picked up the SCO Unix line for my company to distribute, at CEBIT in Hanover, then did a little with Sun systems in the late '80s. Still using teaching and supporting MS DOS & Windows through into the mid '90s. '95 tried Redhat and Debian but didn't have the time or patience to get them working on my home systems. Tried again in 2000 with Debian and looked occasionally on my spare PCs. Set up a Ubuntu server as just a file server in 2001. That has kept going in various forms to date. Now is a Mint 18 with about 10TB of storage space. Decided this year I will make a serious effort to learn how to use it properly and may drop Windows 10 as it is, like Google, collecting more information than I'm happy with. So now I have Mint Mate 18 on a spare PC for testing, Mint 18 Mate and Cinnamon on vm's on my main PC and Mint Mate 18 stripped down as my file server. I hope to rebuild the spare PC to test LAMP then may make it into a mail server. Unfortunately now I'm retired I seem to have less time than when I was consulting for the past 17 years.

I got installed and used slackware Linux more than 20 years back

Read about Red Hat in a trade mag in the late ninety's. Loaded Linux on a test machine in 1998 and found it did every thing I needed PLUS I could fix it when it broke. I have never looked back.

I had heard about Linux from other computer geeks at school in the mid 90's, and when I came across THIS book at an outlet mall I bought it with my hard earned high school job money. My mom wouldn't let me load it on our $3,000 Packard Bell computer though, and I ended up only reading about Linux. Good thing too, I probably would have bricked the thing. A couple years later I bought a box set of Mandriva Linux 7 and ran into problems getting it loaded. A coworker at the computer repair shop I was working at was a Slackware Wizard (or at least I thought he was), and he helped me get it running. I was playing Everquest at the time and attempted to get Wine functioning with Mandriva and Everquest. Believe it or not, it worked, but was SO slow that you couldn't actually play. A quick format/reinstall of Windows and I was back to playing my game, and away from Linux again. Since then I've dabbled with most of the major distros, but keep finding myself coming back to Slackware...