When did you start working around with Linux?
from Luffy879@lemmy.ml to linux@lemmy.ml on 13 May 06:18
https://lemmy.ml/post/30027961
from Luffy879@lemmy.ml to linux@lemmy.ml on 13 May 06:18
https://lemmy.ml/post/30027961
Yes, im doing le funy Meme. And yes, I am an autist, with some signs towards something adhd adjacent
I first tried Linux Mint when I was 12, eventually changed to Ubuntu when I was 13 or 14 because I saw the Windows 11 copilot button, installed arch at late 14, and got to gentoo when I was 15.
Can anyone beat me to it?
threaded - newest
Kudos gentoo colleague! Its the best distro all around.
I started when I was less than 18. It was some prehistoric redhat, like redhat 0.1 or such (joking, but really, it was the '90s)
Then around -can’t remember- guess 18 or 19. It was Linux From Scratches because… Gentoo didn’t exist back then…
Gentoo has been love at first sight and still today I only use gentoo everywhere. Servers, laptops, mediacenters…
I even ported gentoo on an android tablet 10 years ago.
I just posted a picture of my first Linux CD box, and that includes ‘Red Hat Mother’s Day release +0.1’. Maybe you had this same article :)
Only since last July. It’s Arch btw. I love it, but wifey doesn’t understand it and therefore I still have windows. ☹️
<img alt="chomsky-yes-honey" src="https://hexbear.net/api/v3/image_proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchapo.chat%2Fpictrs%2Fimage%2F5aff9849-cb95-46a2-93d8-ee5af1c85330.png"> That button was announced January 2024.
I think the first Linux I installed was probably Ubuntu somewhere around 5.04-6.06, I would have been about 15 at the time.
That cant be true
I remember dual booting Ubuntu, I was on a Win insider build, and the button must have appeared around 2023
Oh, I thought you were talking about the physical keyboard button, apparently the software copilot button appeared around May 2023, about seven months earlier
That sounds way more reasonable
Fedora 2. It’s been a while.
I started robotics at 12, started linux aroumd the same time but had to use windows for the program used for robotics competitions,
Stopped attending them at 14 so started using arch right after that and used it for 6 years.
After that used gentoo for a year at 20, and now I’m 21 using nixos.
I also started selfhosting with linix vps-s at around the age of 18, with debian. And last week started to move all my server to nixos with nixos-anywhere and deploying the server with deploy-rs.
Might make a blogpost on my selfhosting journey and on how I use nixos for selfhosting. Haven’t made a post since the start of the year.
I remember quite well burning an Ubuntu 9.04 Live CD, and before that trying an ancient Knoppix Live CD that my dad had laying in a drawer. I must have been 15 back then.
Debian and Mandrake in the late 1990s. And I was already almost three times as old as you were when you started. These days I’m happy with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed for daily use. I tried NixOS but it threatened to break my old brain.
Not really, i first used Linux in 2001 or 3… It’s been some time. I think it was fedora 1. I was 21/3.
First installed Linux in 2008, Ubuntu 8.04 and started daily driving Ubuntu 10.04 in late 2010.
Since then I’ve used a lot of different distros, I’m now running mint.
In saying that, my son has only had Linux (and Chromebooks at school), I got him to help install his own system, he was 7 at the time.
I first experimented with Linux in 1999, but didn’t stay with it for long as I never got X11 working. I started using it more seriously in 2001 / 2002 and by the time Windows XP was established, I was a full time Linux user. I was a lot older than you though being in my mid-thirties.
I was always curious about this linux thing, from when I was in 7th grade, I only knew Kali linux then, and I thought one could hack anything if you had kali linux :), But I seriously started using linux in 10th grade, fell into the rabbit hole of ricing, and to this day still cant get over it although it has become more stable and I know what I am doing.
I first started Ubuntu as a minecraft server, then last year I actually started using it as a desktop.
I started using Linux before you were born, but i also was 20, so you win😄
My first new computer was an Acer Aspire One netbook with Windows 7 starters. I quickly realized what “starter” meant and discovered Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Remix. The rest is history.
I bought that netbook, I actually have it sitting on the floor over here in a pile of e waste that won’t turn on anymore.
But I bought it with the intent to install Crunchbang which I ran on it until it died.
.
I first dipped my toes in when I was probably around 14, messed with Ubuntu and damn small Linux but that was about it. I stuck with Mac as I didn’t enjoy windows and needed something “mainstream” back then. It wasn’t until apple made hackintosh’s somewhat obsolete and Microsoft started cramming AI into windows that I made the switch. I now run NixOS on my gaming rig and personal laptop
about 20 years ago. Early 2000s I started messing around with Redhat and was suprised that a full OS that did most of the windows things was available for free. when Ubuntu gained traction I jumped on that and tried distro hopping a bit before landing aolidly on Debian derivatives as my linux of choice. I remember catching a ban in WoW because WINE was detected by their anti cheat for a while.
Mandrake 6, not quite twice as long since you were born?
I initially tried linux mint and ubuntu when i was like 13 on my laptop, which is almost 15 years ago now. At the time it wasn’t because i hated windows, but my monkey brain was just interested in it because it looked so much different. After i realized that i couldn’t just use all my windows programs like usual (and especially gaming wasn’t nearly as good back then), i quickly went back to windows. Fast forward to 2020, at this point i had started disliking windows mainly because all of it’s creepy questions when you install it, like wanting your handwriting information and all that, but at the same time i thought “well what can you do about it?”. Then i saw the LinusTechTips video about trying linux instead of windows 11. This was the first time i had actually thought of linux again in all those years. The video convinced me to give it a try and i started with PopOS. After a few months i moved to arch cause i liked the idea of customizing my distro more from the ground up. Stayed with arch for 2 years, then i got the distro hop virus. Tried a lot of them, fedora, opensuse, ended up staying on Void linux for over a year in total. Now i’m using NixOS and very happy with it, and i think i’m finally settling down on a distro. I know LTT gets a lot of flack for how they handled the linux challenge, but if it wasn’t for that initial video back in 2020, i would have probably never given linux another try. And with valve investing so much into improving wine and dxvk and all that, it was viable for me to switch as a gamer.
I think it was about year 2000 +/- I was about 23 yrs old… I’ve tried a most of the big distros, and was using Ubuntu for the longest time. Now it’s Mint I use…
Around 2014 I had hacker phase so I’ve installed BackTrack(Kali Linux), ofcourse I didn’t knew a thing about Linux but hey it was a start :D
Since then I had dual boot with Windows until 2020 when Ubuntu 20.04 dropped and Windows never touched my computers again.
1997, it was a wonderous year 🥰 i was 16 at the time.
Linux came in big boxes with a large book and CD’s!
Back at the university, sometime around 1995 when I needed a Unix for the exams. Downloaded on 1.4 Mb floppies
I started 28 years ago with Slackware 3.0, then Gentoo, Ubuntu, took a detour via OS X, then back to Ubuntu, now Arch.
In my early teens, I got really into computers, built my first PC when I was about 13, started learning Windows batch scripting and using GameMaker to make goofy PC games.
Along the way, I found Trinity Rescue Kit and was also introduced to Fedora Core by a nerdy guy who worked at my local YMCA.
I didn’t actually enjoy it too much back then, so I left it alone for years until about 5 years ago when I started to get back into the free software movement and related interests.
I’ve been 100% on Linux for about 4 years now and never looked back.
Many thanks for your reply. You’re pretty experienced at both hardware as well as software l presume. I’d be highly obliged if you can be my guide in creating my website.
I was 7 when I first properly used Linux. My dad somehow found a prebuilt which came with SuSE - I assume version 7 or thereabouts. It didn’t last long, sadly, before we switched over to Windows XP.
Then at age 14/15, I ran Ubuntu 10 as my daily driver on my netbook. Then #! for a bit.
Used Windows 7 and 10 until… I guess age 26/27 since that’s what we’re doing, when I switched to Debian full-time. (Via MX-Linux, which didn’t quite work out)
#! Linux was amazing. So simple in the UI, but plenty of features if you wanted to set them up.
Can totally relate, lol. Except I first tried Ubuntu at around 12 (at the time it was considered the best for beginners), then nearly 20 years passed until I saw the same copilot button pop up, uninvited, in my task bar. That was the last straw for me.
Now I run OpenSUSE as a daily driver.
My dad had a Knoppix boot CD in a case with all the games, of course I messed with it as a curious child, I have no idea how old I was, but it was my first foray into the wonderful world of not Windows.
I started using openSuSE full time on my laptop after the disastrous Windows 8 upgrade (it kept bluescreening and had problems suspending on that laptop.*), I guess I was 11 at the time.
But I’ve been messing around with Live CDs on my parents’ computer that came with a computer magazine my dad subscribed to for a while before that. I remember spending a lot of time in Knoppix specifically. Probably mostly playing the games that came on it.
* Windows 10 still has the same issues on it last time I checked lmao
2005
Fedora Core 5
At some point in 2006, I switched to Ubuntu. Jumped to Debian after Canonical thought it would be cute to send our data to Jeff Bezos and show is ads.
Fuck Canonical.
Been on Debian ever since, except for 1 netbook that I keep using Kali - which I used in the Backtrack days.
Linux didn’t exist until I was 25.
But are we talking earliest age, or length of time using it? I’ve been running Linux on PCs for over 30 years.
Yes, at least seeing a 50yo guy like me. We come from the 8bit world, there was no linux!
Been there! It was Avery different time.
The first program I wrote was in the Logo Turtle Game on an Apple Iie in 4th grade. Did some BASIC programming on the Apple IIe’s building interpreter too.
I use Arduino boards with Atmega, Esp32/8266, and M0 chips on them for embedded projects. These $8 boards have more processing capability then my first desktop computer…
I know it’s just nostalgia, but I sometimes really miss the days when you could memorize the entire memory layout of your computer. You knew that if you poked a value into a memory location, some pixels would flip at a certain place on the screen.
It was nice living in such a small, constrained world.
I still live it. I use some Atmega chips like the attiny85. It only has 256 bytes if RAM and 5 i/o pins to work with. I code in C++ so I have 100% control over memory if I want it.
Someday I’ll find a reason to work with attiny10 chips… There’s almost no resources on it and it’s about the size of a grain of rice!
www.microchip.com/en-us/product/attiny10
Man, you make me wish I’d have followed an embedded career. When I first entered the market, embedded was niche and the domain of specialty industries like the MIC. If you cut out companies like Lockheed, building stuff to kill people, the job pool was really small. But there was a window, juuust around the time I moved to management, when you could find embedded jobs. I wish now I’d have taken that fork in the path.
I just finished teaching an Internet of Things class this term. I went strong on the ‘things’ bit of the title. We did all kinds of hardware projects, along with web apis, mqtt, and a tiny bit of clouds services to move data.
It was one of the most fun classes I’ve ever taught. That stuff is great!
I tried xubuntu when I was 14 on a live cd to get students admin access on our school laptops. Once I got my own machine, I kept it on windows 10 until it became unstable so I moved to Bunsenlabs, then Pop OS due to it’s dgpu. (Intel igpu, amd dgpu)
I’ve been daily driving Ubuntu for at least 16 years. I miss when Ubuntu had Windows style Start Menus and barely functional entertainment software.
I don’t care about specific distros, I chose Ubuntu because I liek purple
Started messing around with it some time in 2003, on Mandrake Linux when I was 21 years old. Experimented and ran servers with various distros in the years since but it didn't become my daily driver until about 2014-15, with Debian.
Started with Ubuntu at 12. Did a LAN boot to my mom’s laptop somehow, I couldn’t explain it if I tried. It was supposed to be on my PC. Didn’t work in the end and got grounded for “hacking” went back to it though a few years later at 16 and dived around Ubuntu and Gentoo. Never installed gentoo but I certainly kept trying.
In 2006 my university used Ubuntu, I thought ‘Wow, this is different!’ Tried it out on my own computer but I was a heavy gamer so windows was the best option (hey, Win7 pretty alright anyway!)
Fast forward to about 2022, I try it again but it’s not getting incorporated well with my program usage in school (as a teacher).
Fast forward to 2024, worked out that Tencent software is on AUR (teacher in Mainland China) and I figure I’m doing another dive. So far, so good. Little itty bitty glitches especially with Libreoffice but I’m getting by without touching Win10.
I’d say I was around that age. Maybe earlier, 10? But only because my dad was into linux. This was back in 1998 to 2000 though. I wasn’t actually allowed access to a computer’s hardware (and therefore the ability to install an OS, given my extremely restricted access) until I started uni with an old computer that didn’t even have onboard sound.
My first laptop was an Ubuntu machine with no battery when I was 4. I had no idea what Linux was, I just played the games my uncle had pre-loaded onto it.
In University. In the 90s we used commercial un*x (HP-UX, IRIX, AIX, Solaris/SunOS, SCO) and some others like SVR4, BSD, Minix. Then a guy on usenet talked about making is own kernel running on a 386. My first real full linux install was kernel 0.99 on a 486DX50, around 1993, came in multiple floppies, then to install X11 that was like 10 more floppies! Configuring things was a bit nighmarish.
I had a Linux beginners class at my HS in 10th grade but I’ve forgot about Linux, until 12th grade when 2 of my really nerdie friends started shilling Linux to me, especially pointing out that now you can play windows games on Linux, and not too long after I eventually did the jump when starting my comp sci uni (19 years old) with Manjaro as a first, but I have found happiness in EndevaorOS due to Manjaro being unstable.
I messed around trying to get Redhat 7.2 or 7.3 working but gave up (Q1 or Q2 2002). I later experimented with SuSe (or however it was stylised in Q1 2005), messed about with Knoppix and a few other distros, before properly going all-in on Ubuntu 5.04 when I was 18.
I started using linux Slackware in 1996. First time I was paid to install linux on a server in 1998. It was Red Hat 5.2 way before they switch to Enterprise Linux.
Been my desktop daily driver since 1999.
Yes, I’m old.
i thought i was old for lemmy till i saw the dates in these comments.
I was given a logging on a RedHat server in 1997. It was operated by a fellow student in the dorm.
My school taught the engineers how to use SunOS for class, so it wasn’t a huge leap to start using a telnet connection to a local Linux machine.
Within a few months I was dual booting an older desktop Linux/Win95, and away I went. Since then it’s been about 90%+ of my daily computer use on Linux machines.
My college buddy first told me about Linux at around the start of 1998. After some research I decided I would make the switch at the end of the semester. For a couple years I had mac but I’ve always had a Linux box running.
Just to put you all on notice: I started my kids on Linux from day 1 of their computing lives. I’m playing the long game here. In another 80 years they’re going to be in the longest living users category.
They mostly use Linux as their daily drivers. Any time they have to use windows for school work they also rage at the terrible UI and lack of ease of use. <Insert evil laughter here>
I’d love to make Linux my daily driver, but there’s an issue with 2d animations on any Linux distro I install on my laptop. Windows 10 does not have this issue. So that means like half the Internet is stuttery.
Until that is fixed, I cannot use it as my daily driver.
What kind of graphics hardware does your laptop have?
I have a Lenovo Legion 5 Pro (Ryzen 7 5800H + RTX 3060). This happens across EVERY distro I’ve tried (Debian 12, Fedora 42, Mint Cinnamon, EndeavourOS, Nobara, PopOS) and EVERY browser (Firefox, Brave, Chromium).
Key symptoms:
Someone else with an RTX 3060 tested the exact same game, seeing the same ~20W power draw, but has zero stutter issues.
Here’s everything I’ve tried so far:
I’ve monitored GPU power draw during gameplay and it hovers at 20-25W even when the light is red (performance mode) and the card is locked at P0 performance state. This is considerably lower than the ~80W it should be able to draw under load. It might not need to draw much more, but right now it’s not drawing any more.
When I run the Firefox profiler to see what’s happening, I can see the frame drops but there’s no clear cause. And the fact that 3D browser games work fine but 2D ones stutter makes no sense to me.
If you have any idea at all I’m listening, I’m all out of ideas :(
That’s odd. I’ve been running OpensSUSE Tumbleweed with a Ryzen 9 5950X and RTX 3080 with no issues. I don’t know what would be making yours, with similar hardware, function differently unless it’s the laptop stuff for dynamically switching between onboard graphics and the GPU.
Even when I use the MUX switch and use only the dedicated card it stills stutters badly on 2d graphics only. It’s really strange.
as a teenager somewhere between 1996 and 1998.
Right behind you by a few years
Me too, Slackware - we’re getting old aren’t we?
a month ago, never goin back…so much power, so much free ram. im in love
<img alt="" src="https://sopuli.xyz/pictrs/image/a098fd18-0e3a-4366-b1a7-ede963895177.webp">
Here’s what I started with. The release of Windows 95 lured me away from Amiga, but as the Amiga was a very customisable environment, I had this for an escape plan :D
In the Amiga days I was ridiculously lucky and bagged a Silicon Graphics Indy system for pennies, so Unix was no stranger at this point.
Cool, no, not my version but very close to it…
Recently started learning Linux with ChatGPT…
And WOW! I love Linux!! It’s so easy to deploy apps with Docker!
about a decade ago i used to mess around with some debian based distros on dual boot, mostly as a toy
then used xenialpup for a bit when my drives got toasted
then used mint for a year ish as my daily driver before moving to arch which i’ve been on ever since
in 2002 when my windows me computer start looping on the blue screen of death, with all of my college papers/essays/tests/assignments trapped in it.
the recovery media refused to work because i had upgraded the computer several times and i couldn’t afford the $180 windows xp cd. so i bought a linux magazine for $5 that included a copy of mandrake linux installation media and used paper printouts from my college’s computer labs to help me rescue my work from the computer.
That’s how you do it. Waiting to drown but suddenly learning to fly :D
lol. This is my story as well, except I wrecked my XP MBR and the CD was in Dr. Dobbs that my dad had a sub thru his work from. I was too impatient to wait for him to bring home an XP install CD.
I suspect that this is the story for most Linux users; windows failing at a critical need
Slackware. 1993.
I’m old lol.
Been through:
Slackware
Mandrake
Debian
Ubuntu
Redhat , old and new
Fedora
Arch
Knoppix
Pop!
CentOS
Enlightenment
Etc etc…
Right now I’m living on KDE Neon.
I installed Ubuntu in 2007 or so, but moved right after and got a new computer, so I didn’t really do anything with it. I installed Peppermint 9 on a new laptop a few years before Windows 7 went EOL because it came with Windows 10 installed but couldn’t actually run it. Ran great with Linux. When Windows 7 stopped getting security updates, I installed Peppermint on my desktop, too. After the man dev passed away, the project went it a different direction, so I switched to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. That was a few years ago. Still with it, still happy.
Caldera in 1999 or 2000 at home. RedHat and SuSE at work.
I got to cut my teeth on CP/M (not nix of course) on a Kaypro II thanks to my uncle. 1982. I owe him a lot for giving me a headstart on computing.
Commodore vic20 was my first, then a TRS80 with CP/M
Yggdrasil somewhere around ‘93… maybe ‘94. Recompiling a kernel took a VERY long time.
I’ve been doing this a while.
Started with Ubuntu’s initial 4.10 release back in '04. I wish I still had the Live CD they mailed me. When Ubuntu ditched Gnome for Unity I switched to Mint. Up until a few months ago I was dual-booting Windows alongside it, but with 10’s EOL approaching I’m ditching it.
I do keep an old laptop running Win10 specifically for some Audio-related software I just can’t get to work in Linux.
Purchased a copy of Redhat from compusa in 1997… never did get my modem working with it unfortunately,
About the time that Windows 10 came out. I was just messing around and ended up liking it.
when I first heard about MS recall
I was in 8th grade so 13-14 years old right?
I have a physical CD of Ubuntu 6.10, back then they were distributing those over the mail and a friend of mine ordered some and gave me. I still keep it.
I started using linux with dual boot in June 2024 where I installed Fedora/Fedora immutable kde and bazzite.
Tried GNOME on my brother’s old Laptop but using Extensions for changing one thing(and breaking every update) was annoying I have been using Fedora till I stumbled across CachyOS I switched to Cinnamon around this time from KDE I found kde kinda Buggy (heard it’s Nvidia or smth) and it just felt uncomfortable Around December 2024 Where I used Linux full time (no windows dual boot) this is when I found Cachyos (or arch variants) and Cinnamon comfortable the only problem is that Cinnamon doesn’t have Vrr,HDR and Wayland for me but I use Gamescope if I need vrr and HDR
I find cinnamon kind of useless
It just has this beige win 7 look, that is somehow both new and old at the same time. You dont have the Macros and Costumisation of Plasma, but you also dont have the rigidness and tablet-style interface of Gnome. You dont have the ressource friendlyness of xfce. The only thing it has is that it can both render qt and gtk in its own style, but xfce already does that with its very win xp like interface, which both qt and gtk have themes for
I agree with this kinda but I find Cinnamon more comfortable to use then Xfce but I could use xfce
My son’s first computer was Linux. ;) He was still toddling but wanted to hit my computer, so I set up an old one for him.
I was 14 in 1991 I should add. I switched from minix not long after I could get Linux to boot. I think that was actually 1992. Both the computer and Linux weren’t very good back then …
Built my first PC in High School from scraps. Decided to try Ubuntu 10.04 (current at the time).
I was very impressed with how much performance a free OS could get out of my awful hardware. Have been using Linux in some form as my OS ever since.
I’ve started with lubuntu 11.10 on a Pentium 4. I was 11. Time flies!
2002, I was 11. My dad had bunch of Linux install CDs that came with Dr. Dobbs. I fucked up my XP MBR and asked him to bring home a XP install disk cause i lost all mine.
By the time he got home I had installed Mandrake Dolphin Linux on my PC.
I messed around with Linspire in the early 2000s after seeing a segment about it on The Screen Savers (on TechTV). It was about Microsoft suing them for originally calling the OS “Lindows”, so called because it was among the first OSes designed to attract people who are used to Windows.
I believe that it was among the first distros to induce the concept of app stores to Linux, and since I couldn’t figure out how tar.gz files worked at the time, it sounded like a good idea to me. Used it for about a year or three, before moving onto Ubuntu for many years then eventually Arch.
And now I’m back on Windows again because I bought an HDR display and learned the hard way that Linux has terrible support for it. Can’t get the HDR intensity slider to work properly in KDE, and there’s no SDR-to-HDR conversion at all in Linux, which means no AutoHDR and no RTX HDR. So in the meantime I’m dual booting Win11 and Arch, but I find myself using Windows more and more because it’s HDR support keeps getting better and better, especially if you have an nVidia GPU.
I think I tried DamnSmallLinux in a VM around like 2008 or something which I thought was really cool, then I tried Fedora which I didn’t really like, then I tried Ubuntu which I really liked and still do, although I’m going to switch to Mint at some point because I prefer the idea of having a community-owned distro.
Also early 2000s here, but I was in my late 20s by then. Started out on Debian not that long before Woody came out, then before too long I tried Mandrake alongside it.
Exciting stuff for someone who first set hands (and started into BASIC) on a TRS-80, and then ran GEOS on a C64 for years. I was drawn to the opportunities for more tinkering, among other things.
Around '99 or '00. A friend of mine was gifted a Linux Magazine subscription and made me a copy of the CD. It was noteworthy at the time because it didn’t have any copy protection and we were neck deep in piracy, keeping our friend group supplied with copies of games that we pulled off of IRC.
Getting a CD full of software that made no effort to prevent copying was intriguing enough that we sacrificed a spare machine one weekend (giving up the ability to play LAN StarCraft!) to see what another operating system looked like.
We tinkered on and off for a year, once we could get dual boot working (thanks to the IRC crowd) we used it a bit more often. Mostly ricing, though that wasn’t a term at the time, and playing with the hacking tools (for educational purposes only, of course).
I think there was some copy protection mode that was annoying to write on Windows but trivially easy on Linux, which was the first time that I can remember where it was just better than Windows. That, and ARP poisoning our LAN parties to packet capture and read people’s AIM and ICQ conversations because we were little shits.
I think my very first exposure to Linux was when I got a Pi 3 for Christmas when I was 10; by next year, I was trying out Ubuntu 16.04 in a VM.
However, it took several years before I began daily-driving; I had thrown it on an old laptop during my sophomore year of high school that I mostly used from the couch.
I then did a “test install” of Debian Testing on my main desktop pater that year, which just became what I used every day and quickly just became my main operating system.
I soon installed it on everything else I owned and haven’t looked back.