I am sorry, I realized two years ago that I forgot. All I remembr was a blue CD, name 5 letters beginning with an M and I payed 45 Dutch guiders, at that time about $12.5, for it. The word "OpenSource" is very much younger than that. After 2 or 3 years I bought SuSE 6.4 and a great many ( 7, 8, 9, 10 was too bad, 11, 12 after them. Wait now for 13) and thought since yesterday about Ubuntu since LibreOffice suggested so.

To be honest: I do not know which one to use now. Several people swear by ( Is that word dutch only ? ) Ubuntu, I tried it this morning and am very disappointed. I think that more attention should be given to keep irreplaceables (DVD, internet) and easyToReplaces in different diskpartitions. Ubuntu wipes your harddisk completely without warning.

One more suggestion for you and Google: Oblige everybody to add the date ( preferable in iso 8601 yyyy-mm-dd) to every message. I have read websites for many pages when I noticed it was dated 1990 or so.

Nieuwenhuizen.
2014-03-03

By the way: It is very difficult to find how to add a question to LQ. Better instructions are urgently needed!!!!

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I wonder why you asked me. Was it about the question I posted yesterday but did not appear in any forum ( as I can see )?

N

Was your Linux back in the day MEPIS? Your post yesterday did not get posted correctly, I don't see it you should try reading, sticky posts, quick links and other guides (normally at the top of pages) here on the forums... here's a start: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...stions-org-49/ best wishes and have fun.

I started in 2008.
I remember I messed up really bad my desktop with Windows Xp. The repair shop guy told me it was going to be over $100 to clean the hard drive and re install everything back. My budget was very limited at that time so I looked around and an online friend suggested me to try Ubuntu I had never heard of Linux before.

So Ubuntu was my first encounter with Linux. I still like Ubuntu because it converted me and I know, it has converted many other users too. I have now tried different distros the one I would always like to keep are: Arch, Debian, FreeBSD (I know not Linux), OpenSUSE, and SlackWare.

Good times

I left the Navy in 1988 and took a job at Carnegie Mellon University(CMU) which I worked for 6yrs, during this time I was introduce3d to Linux and to Linus Torvalds via the Internet. Linus was a post grad student at the time and Linux was still in beta, I started to use Linux on my home PC, which I also had Minix installed on as well. At the time shoelace was the boot loader and it was very archaic, basically you had to address the hard drive in hexadecimal(if memory serves) it was a long and painful proces, later came LILO, which was much easier, but still a far cry from the auto installers of today. I left CMU in 1994 and did computer field service for a time, hadn't really played with Linux during this time, until 1999, when I went to work for Black Box Corp, as a network engineer, I believe I used Madrake at that time, then I hadn't touched Linux for many years, I was using Free BSD and Sun OS besides Windows. I recently became very disenchanted with Microsoft recently when they started sending corrrupted updates to Windows 7, to try to force users to Windows 8, which I tried, but HATE. So, I loaded several version of Linux one at a time to try and find a good fit, I am currently running Ubuntu 13.10 which seems ok, but I liked the Windows look of Mint, I really liked how Mint has the programs layed out and broken down by catagory, just couldn't get mint to run as well As Ubuntu 13.10. I am now downloding RoboLinux, to see how that works. Power to the users!

I was a 54 yo real estate appraiser. We did a pencil copy and gave it to the steno pool for typing. Then the other appraiser noticed an Everex 286-12 (turbo) desktop sitting idle. Had MS Dos 3.0, WordPerfect 5.0 for DOS and a mystery program which turned out to be SuperCalc 4. Management bought (copy protected) DOS formfilling appraisal software and we had to learn how to use the computer. Became upset with Microsoft over their vaporware during rollout of WordPerfect for Windows. Switched to OS/2 for quite awhile. Tried Windows 98 and had such a bad experience that I looked for something more reliable. One supervisor said that my preference for Open Source seemed partly technical and partly political.

After my Windows OS went out (would not boot) I just read everything I could find online about Linux. That was Fall 2009 or later. Since then I've been using Linux more than 50% of the time.

A Japanese kid in my high school.

My reply is posted. After much reading and research, I decided on a plan to introduce myself to Linux and now do most of my serious online and offline computing in Linux operating systems. In fact, for 3-4 years, my only working operating systems were Linux-based.
I've had one desktop computer since mid 2009and over that period, as now, it was imperative for me to keep the Linux working in order to enjoy using the computer; correction, in order to be able to use the computer. After recovering my Windows 7 Home Premium about six times, I was resolved to preserve my Linux systems and do without Windows, until I finally bought an OEM installation disk and used it to repair the boot sequence. So now I am happily nurturing my Windows and twelve Linux systems on my desktop Dell XPS 7100 and using Redo OS from CD as my backup and restore facilitator. That is Ubuntu Gnome and eleven additional Ubuntu derivatives. I am on my computer 6-10 hours every day, still testing distros, both new and from my stacks of about 640 optical disks.My hobby is using them, as well as a sizable collection of USB installs, from Puppy Linux to PC Linux and many things in between.Being a Newbie isn't so bad. I'm a Zorin and LXLE lover. click on.

It is FREE and you can build your own SERVER. You can do many things with LINUX. create your own website. setup your own FTP server. or anything else you want to do with it.

A friend in MobileRead.com told me about LQ when I asked if there was anywhere to discuss Linux in MobileRead. I've been turned on to open source by another friend who was helping me format my ebooks.

I was on IRC years ago. Ended up in a room called #slackware and met a member named Aeonflux. He helped me set up a bot, think it was like 1.6 at the time anyway it was like 2002 or so. He taught me a few tricks and got me interested in Slackware. I went that route a bit, never quite got the hang of it, and did the same with Free BSD. Again never quite got it. Tried Unbuntu and found that to be like windows and just didnt see the point. Went Redhat, and Debian before coming back to Slack. Off and on I install it, get frustrated and leave. This time though I am determined to tuff it out.

Before I had my own computer, my dad used Solaris on all of his computers. Once I finally did build my own computer, I started trying all sorts of Linux distros. To this day I can't decide which distro is my favorite. They all have their own advantages and disadvantages. Though as of right now, I run CentOS on most of my machines and Debian on a few others. I'd love to install Gentoo again but I just don't have the time for it.

I am a poor boy and can't afford Windows?

out of curiosity i started taking interest in Linux, the first thing that appealed to me is that it is free and less prone to virus and malware attack. i am just an average user of PC and opting for Linux to me is all about being part of a community who thinks beyond windows and ready to adapt to new things.