LXer: Why do you use Linux?
 

Published at LXer:

I was recently engaged in a similar discussion which reminded me of a situation in which I truly learned to appreciate Linux enabled technologies. Now, I could get all nostalgic and say, that it was so and so year and this was happening in mylife but truth be told, it was one specific event that truly highlighted the power and adaptability of the Linux kernel.

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Why do you use Linux?

Firstly: because it was free.

Second: because it was different.

Third: because I could decide what it looked like.

Fourth: because I could choose which programs were installed.

Fifth: after getting to grips with it, I realised how powerful it was.

So there was no going back to that commercial O/S. :)

Simply the fact that it never gets slow or old unlike W$ND0Z3

Why do I use Linux?

When I was in High School, freshman year (1993), I was introduced to the Internet by way of AIX. Unix was something completely different that using my home PC with MS-DOS 6.22 and Win3.1 at the time. Most access was through console based terminals, but we had a few IBM XStations that could run X (with large resolutions at the time on 27" screens... I'm talking resolutions of 2000 horizontal pixels... I forget the exact number, but that blew my mind compared to my EGA 640x480 at home).

AIX was new, and totally different from what I was used to. Being a diehard geek at the time, I loved it. I came to hear of this thing called Linux, but did not have internet access at home, and the consoles and X Stations had no floppies, so... it was a no go. However, I had already fallen in love with Unix and Unix-like.

In college, the dorms had ethernet access to the Net, but I had forgotten about GNU/Linux (BTW I was using OS/2 3.0 on my PC, having left Windows 2 years prior) until chatting on IRC with this guy in Canada who reintroduced me. He guided me through installing Red Hat 5 (IIRC, it was 5), and compiling a kernel to get sound and networking working. Wow, what a PITA, I remember thinking coming from the just works world of Windows and DOS (sorry, that was pretty much true at the time for me, it really did work reasonably well). I would boot between RH 5, OS/2 and Win 98, until a few years later leaving Linux for solely FreeBSD. Around 2004 or so it was back to GNU/Linux - and Debian GNU/Linux alone. No Windows, no OS/2. Just Linux.

Still just GNU/Linux alone.

I use Linux because a fellow told me I could use it to self-host my website. After about a year of self-hosting on an old IBM-PC 300, I took the leap and put Slackware on my laptop. Haven't looked back.

I no longer self-host the site, but I'm still learning how to use Linux.

I think part of it, in addition to reasons listed above, is that I like to tinker, and Linux is friendly to tinkerers. Plus, once you get the hang of it, Linux is very logical.

I use Linux because it allows me to do what I want with my machine. There is no "special server version" I need to install if I want to host web pages. I can run a desktop environment as flashy or as simple as I like. Drivers are mostly just taken care of rather than having to mess with outdated CDs. Software is mostly in repositories or available on sites where it appears as peer-reviewed source.
I like the versatility and freedom.

Because I'm more comfortable in it than any other OS.