I started in 1994 with a shell account on a local linux-running freenet. Husband used slackware at home. When I 'retired' I started using slackware at home too. (Rule #1: always use the distro that your tech support facility uses.) It's more controllable than windows, with less hand-holding. This is both a blessing and a curse. I still have a win7 machine, but I only use it for stuff like taxes that won't run under linux. I keep meaning to to add win7 via virtualbox to my linux installation. Maybe next month...

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I started to use computers well before Windows came out. At that time, everything was CLI-based, and operating systems were pretty simple; it was easier to have the control on everything. I'm not a control freak, but I want things done the best way.
Then, I discovered Unix at the University. I was blown by the power of this operating system.
When Windows came out, I was already in the IT industry, working on Unix systems. Frankly, the first versions was pretty ugly, and most of the configuration was still to be done thru files; because Windows was aimed for desktops, far less powerful than servers, nothing really exiting here, even for graphics (nothing to compare with Next Workstations).
Then Linux came out in the late 90s. At that time, I was using SCO Unix, a clean and powerful SVR4, with a lot of docs. In our company, Linux (slackware) was installed as a mail server... and was quickly corrupted, the only attack I've seen in all my career.
Nevertheless, I wanted to test further and installed Linux at home (I found a RedHat 5 CD-ROM in a magazine). Since then I use Linux at home; simple, clean and lot of software.
However, everything is not always that pink with Linux. When I upgraded from Ubuntu 10 to 14, the graphic card on my HP Workstation stopped working. It took me two month to clearly figure out what was going on; Nvidia's new driver simply dropped the support of my card, and the new kernel was not able to work with the old driver. Nouveau didn't see my card; the only way was to find another card.

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Its free. If Windows were free, I'd use it instead.

I started using it because it was free as in beer and I was poor so couldn't afford to keep buying new Windows licenses.

Now I use it because I'm lazy and don't want to learn how to use Windows again since it's been so long that I've used some form of Linux as my primary OS, that I really don't know what I'm doing in Windows anymore.

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When I discovered what Free Software was, by reading the GPL in the non-X version of Emacs bundled on a Mac, I started compiling UNIX stuff, running apps in an X11 layer. Further research into UNIX revealed a book about Linux with a Mandriva disc in the back cover. My Mac habit was expensive, but I refused to go near windows, so Linux was looking really good.

These days I could just as easily use BSD or ever OpenIndiana, but Linux has a lot of the "fun" applications that are nice to have, and Linux tends to be more aggressive about using the GPL, which I feel enforces the openness of the code (and protects it from socially irresponsible people and corporations), so there's no incentive to use BSD, or similar, daily.

I started using Red Hat Linux 5 in about 1998 after frustrating myself with Windows 95 for about a year and a half. BSODs. Incompatibilities of Microsoft software. Microsoft office required conflicting libraries from what their Visual C++ required. But I hated to have to reinstall Microsoft Office every time I wanted to run it (form the goddamned floppy disks) and then having to reinstall Visual C++ each time I wanted to run it. I also tried to run the relational database management software that was part of Microsoft Office, and I could not even define a simple database because it complained of bad recursions in the data definitions. I am experienced in that and there were no errors. I also found it impossible to set up a system of cooperating sequential processes connected by messages.
My nephew suggested I get Red Hat Linux 5, so I did and it all worked fine.
I did have experience using UNIX when I worked at Bell Labs. I hated it at the time because I was required to use it for some real time process control, and it was totally unsuited for that. It still is, but I do not do that kind of work anymore, so I do not care about that anymore. For real time process control, I used DEC RSX-11D on a DEC PDP-11/45. Shows how long ago that was.
Right now I am running Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.8 (Santiago).

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Fast and powerful, stable, secure O/S at little to no cost.
Much more powerful and easy to use than Windows.
No worries about licensed software, tracking licenses, etc.
Full open source results in maximum flexibility.

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Loooong ago, started with various Linux for affordability.
But for a long time it's been for utility and control. I can do what I want how I want with much more control and capability than in other OSes.

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I started using Linux because it was free. I kept using it because it was something other than Windows. I still keep a Linux partition because there are some things that Windows can't do.

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Choice, doesn't break the bank, it just works most of the time.
When it quits working, there is some great help at the forums that will help get it fixed.
If all else fail, re-install. It takes a little time but nothing like dealing with or installing Windows.

Non of my gear is new enough to run the latest windows.
I have one bike tuner laptop with Windows 10 on it.
I try to not invest beer money into computers.

Priorities.

Like many other respondents I was a very early user of Windows. I became very proficient in using DOS, had the five inch thick manual and thought this a real advance.

Then someone in our advanced engineering research showed me Unix. My god, I was making do with a tiny subset of Unix. The cost of a Unix license was out of sight so I struggled on with DOS until one day there was Linux. Why use Linux was an immediate a no-brainer

The real question for this thread should be, "Why do you continue to use Linux?"

Again this is a no-brainer. I use Debian's stable version, currently Jessie, because they don't release the stable version until it is truly stable. I am 87 years old and have many friends in their 70's and 90's who struggle with successive Microsoft releases and the problems they have with the current releases. We meet regularly for lunch and at parties and I must listen to their current troubles. Why haven't I told them about Linux? Of course I have, I've told them many times, so often it has become a joke. They laugh and tell me how they took their computer to a specialist who fixed everything for just $200. I can't help them. In my prime I wrote major programs in C and Turbo Pascal and learned another half dozen forgotten programming languages before that. I'll be damned if I'll take the time to learn the ends-and-outs of new Microsoft releases. Besides, the stories of their problems are funny.

I'm preaching to the choir of course. That's why I use Linux.

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I found that Windows kept coming out with a new OS every 3 to 4 years, the cost was too great for someone raising a family. So I was always one distribution behind (to save money), but then updates didn't always go right and I would spend too much time rebuilding it from the ground up. I started with Ubuntu, it's always worked, including the updates, and if there was a problem there are plenty of forums where people will help you fix it. All these years later, I still run Kubuntu, even though I've tried other Linux distros (mostly Debian) Ubuntu does what I need, when I need to do it.

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networking and iptables. oh, and ext3/4 and mdadm. that's about it now. iz enough.

I started out with Linux in the late 1990's. I bought SuSE Personal 6.4 at either Best Buy or Comp USA or one of those types of stores. Heck of a time getting everything to work (had to buy a modem and a sound card) but noticed early on that not even my kids could crash it. Even better, they were able to use it quite intuitively.

Fast forward to now. I've used Ubuntu for ten years or so. I prefer it not only for stability but for privacy. I don't have to worry as much about viruses (so few in the wild, and harder to infect systems), no real worries about back doors (looking at you Microsoft), and love the fact that I don't have to worry about spending a fortune whenever I want to upgrade or I want to wipe my computer. I never need to wipe my computer like I had to with Windows. Linux just works.

If I have a really old computer, it is a snap to find a distro that will work on it. If I have a specific need (like educational games and stuff for my grandson) I can load it up with free programs. If a friend needs to do something, I rarely have to explain how, they can easily figure it out.

I do not like to go online with a Windows computer any more. I don't feel that they are designed for privacy and online safety. I will keep using Linux as my main Internet machine for the foreseeable future.

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