Circa 1994, was working in an ISP, we ran solaris, wanted to spin up a mud and also learn “unix”. Linux was much more performant than solaris x86, and linux helped me learn about web hosting, C, tcp/ip, etc.
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What a fun and interesting thread!
I had some UNIX exposure through college (BSc) on VAX VMS and Solaris but then my “Linux experience” started in a similar manner to @mattlach. I’d started my MSc in 1995 and wanted to spend less time fighting for *NIX terminal time at college as well as experiment at home (part of the course was C++, Shell and Perl).
Well our tutor was a geek too and also recommended that UK computer magazine with Slackware. Our small (3-person!) group of full time students spent an extra 30 minutes chatting to the tutor about this so I got a bunch of useful tips like "download the A and B sets at college so you get all the basic tools). Or something like that… I forget the exact Slackware arrangement 
Anyways, I did a dual-boot install and as they say, “Mind, blown”. Suddenly I had 7 - count 'em! - TTY’s at my disposal. Want a “tail -f ” and some CLI-action simultaneously? Can do and there’s no licence fee. Wow. And gosh, this OS will TELL YOU about the hardware and tell you what’s wrong? And I can GET and COMPILE the kernel to tune it and make things faster?
More awesomeness there although, as @georgezilla notes, it was different back then - no Internet connection where you stayed (dial-up was just starting) and you did a LOT of FTP’ing .tar.gz files, “make config”, “make dep”, “make”, “make install”. But the feeling of control of your own hardware … THAT’s real computing (IMHO, for me at least).
I’ve got to ask: did anyone else get excited when .tar.bz2 came out and we got more compression for our buck?!
So that kicked it all off. I remember hand-crafting the xinit.org file (was it that?) to ensure your monitor would apply the correct modelines and not blow up - yup, you REALLY needed to peruse the README’s to learn how stuff was done. But that tought me more than any college computing course - that feeling of accomplishment when you’ve worked it all out and cracked the issue. Still with me today.
I remember swapping TTY’s for STTY ; interfacing with X.25 gear for a laugh. The college threw it out and our IT admin was kind enough to write me a note allowing me to haul it off the premises. Of course, my buddy and I got flagged driving through central London - ring of steel and all that - and that bobby was certainly suspicious to see a bunch of blue-painted, industrial 19" cases on the rear seats! He let us go, clearly thinking we were a bunch of geeks!
So after that Linux as a firewall, server, etc, etc. I’ve always tried to ensure that “services” I need are actually stable and any experimenting happens elsewhere. After all, Linux was perfect for that ancient PC some department was throwing out!
Regarding distros, after Slackware I went RedHat (when those guys were running it from their appartment!), then Debian once the RH package management got awkward. And Debian has remained my stable OS - it works for me, I’ve used it for ages so am familiar. I am in long term (15 month) testing of Zorin for a desktop but have a cheapo mini PC next to that for when I need to be in full control.
So my advice on distros is: pick one you like and become VERY familiar with it. That can be your selling point on your C.V. (and ofc for related distros).
Also, when experimenting do try to keep tests to something other that your main PC or firewall. Nothing annoys families as much as when the media centre PC goes down on Friday night because you thought “I’ll just quickly apply this little patch”.
Remember, SERVERS are there to SERVE i.e. deliver some useful service to humans. They are less useful when they don’t serve and your data is your most valuable asset. Protect it, don’t experiment with it.
Read the README. Understand the README. For basics, the good 'ol Linux Documentation Project still covers a lot of beginner ground in easy language and it can all be downloaded for free. Consider “What if ?” before applying some patch or app or download and consider waht you might do if things go wrong (they will go wrong). That’ll be useful for $DAYJOB too.
Anyways, if you want control of your hardware then one of the Linux distros will serve you well. If we count from 1995 that tell you how long I’ve used it ; I still game on Windows and use Apple laptops but the servers in our house are all Linux-based and “just work”.
Regards all!
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I used linux on and off on my old notebook a few times before I build my current main rig, but I only saw it as a cool novelty. When I rebuilt my main rig I thought about trying it again since people were saying gaming is actually possible (that was during 2017 - 2018). I went with mint and tried playing overwatch, which was my “main” game at the time, and I had a much better experience than I anticipated. That, along with the direction microsoft started taking with windows 10 (with the ever-increasing telemetry and unnecessary data collection that you can’t completely stop no matter how hard you try) pushed me into trying other games on linux as well.
Here I am now, 7 odd years later, using linux (fedora if we need to be more specific) for basically everything except davinci resolve, photoshop, lightroom and destiny 2, and looking to build a new pc in the future so I can have a windows virtual machine with its own graphics card in order to stop using windows on bare metal for…almost everything I still use windows for nowadays.
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When I was younger I was too cheap to pay for hosting, so I’ve been using it for homelab as long as I can remember. To get myself more used to terminal life, I would run it dual-boot on my laptops.
Eventually, I had a second machine on a KVM to run Linux when I wasn’t doing work related things that require Windows. The major reason I stuck with Windows so long was because of Adobe. So I bought a Mac Studio and tried to use that as a daily driver, but it wasn’t for me. Window management on MacOS is just terrible even with 3rd party solutions. I still use it for all of my Adobe/creative work, so it was well worth it.
Since I wasn’t bound to Windows for Adobe anymore, it was harder to let the annoyances of Windows pass. Installing all their “new” crap, constantly overriding my defaults, installing HP Smart erroneously on a monthly basis (I have 0 printers), allowing mobo vendors to basically rootkit their software onto my machine… all that stuff added up and I was done.
At the office we moved to an operating system agnostic setup, so I gave people the go ahead to switch to Linux if they wanted to, and did so myself. I’ve got a Windows machine on a KVM just in case I need it, but I haven’t so that will drop down to a VM eventually.
At home, I built a new system with a 9800X3D and a 9070 XT running Fedora 41. It wasn’t totally necessary, but I was having issues with my 4070 in Wayland. I threw the drives from my old computer into a mini PC to manage my old Lightroom library. I didn’t want to drag 500K+ images over to the Mac, so I consider it an archive.
I only play one game, heavily modded GTA V. Both the legacy and the Enhanced versions work flawlessishly on Linux. I don’t see myself going back.
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I have always liked the “alternative” platform. I had access to a TRS-80 when I was in elementary school, and then an Amstrad with the Gem Desktop. My own first computer was an IBM XT clone with DOS 3.3 that I quickly upgraded to a 286 (thanks Computer Shopper). Sometime after that DR-DOS became available so I switched to it.
Shortly after I moved out of my parents house to go to college in the late 90s I came across a magazine with an included Debian CD-ROM. It was hell to install but I loved it and have been using Linux since then. Living through the development of the Linux desktop space has been quite the interesting journey so far. I’ve used Red Hat, Fedora, Mint, Ubuntu, and several others but keep coming back to Debian.
These days I have partially converted to the dark side with a Macbook Pro for my home use; I still use Debian for my work laptop though. If I get tired of Apple’s BS (which I will) I can always install Linux on the MBP. I also run two VM hosts at home on Debian with several VMs for Home Assistant and whatnot.
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Windows kept making me upset over the years and I finally lost my temper and broke that 4th pane of windows. I fully switched to linux a year ago, but I have been learning and using it since 2004. I was introduced to it by the Astronomy department at WKU back then. I recently got a Framework 13. It was the most $ I have ever paid for laptop. I also built a new PC 6 months ago that was the most $ I ever spent on a desktop (I call it my budget workstation). I use Fedora on both of them. I really don’t think I can ever go back to Windows fulltime. I despise using it at work so much that I prefer to use a chromebook.
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My Summer Car and BeamNG both run better on Linux. It makes me wonder.
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They aren’t the only examples of games that run better under linux. I think marvel rivals does too (though I haven’t noticed much of a difference in both of my pcs).
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Was using Windows and thought to myself, why not check what else is out there?
The junk-pile got me a barebones computer and off into Ubuntu I went. Never did more than the minimum “it is a thing” with it though.
Until Uni. At uni we had a class where we were going knee deep into FreeBSD, at he time I was suffering Win10 on a slow laptop with BSD in a VM. Some tinkering on a secondary machine at home later, I was back into Linux but this time in Manjaro because Ubuntu had some design choices I did not like.
6 years pass by with Linux being “just a tool” I kept on hand.
Win10 was decent (this is before the nagging being back-ported from Win11).
Win11 however, oh boy I did not like that! Tested it at work for work reason, and I hated it with a passion, and it hated me back.
Then the Steamdeck proved a point: Linux is gaming-ready! Right now!
So, when I decided I wanted a big-boy computer I wanted that machine to not annoy me.
Here I am!
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Endzone 2 on native Windows had a bug where it would take for ever to load, was a non-issue on Linux 
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I started down the road to Linux in 1996 with Slackware 3.1, It was part of a Walnut Creek CDROM set that I had, I had seen people running X and customizing the hell out of it and I wanted to do that too. For those of you that know about Walnut Creek CDROMs, it’s time for that prostate exam.
I have been daily driving Linux on the desktop for the last 25 years. Being an IT Pro for the last 30, and Linux is in everything, it was only inevitable that I would love it.
Today I run CachyOS on my main workstation and have spatterings of Debian, Ubuntu, and Rocky Linux servers.
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Back in like 2007, I had a hand-me-down desktop from my uncle. I was 16, and didn’t really know anything about computers other than how to install games and stuff like that. I knew about viruses, but I was not very careful. So I totally loaded it up with viruses, to the point where I could boot the computer, but I couldn’t actually run anything.
We had some backup discs that were specific to some old laptops, but nothing that just came with Windows on it, so I couldn’t do like a full restore on the computer. My parents wouldn’t buy me a Windows disc, and I didn’t care to save up the money for one because I still had my Xbox.
So I used my parents’ computer for a while for homework and researching how I could fix my computer. I was much more careful with it. Basically didn’t do anything fun on it.
Then I found Linux. I downloaded an Ubuntu 7.10 ISO and made a bootable CD. It installed on my desktop perfectly fine, and I was obsessed with it for a while, doing all kinds of crazy stuff in Compiz and watching all the NixiePixel videos. I got Warcraft 3 to run using WINE, but most of my gaming was still done on the Xbox.
And ever since then, I’ve used it off and on. I’ve tried to go full-time. But inevitably there’s something that breaks, usually some software or a game that isn’t Linux-native. And I’m just like sorry Linux, but I need to be able to use my computer for the things I bought it for.
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Lots of cool stuff on those CDROMs. Having one was awesome because you suddenly had an entire distro worth “at your fingertips”. Good times 
although you’ll excuse me if I don’t overshare re my medical history
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I started around 98, installed redhat.
Used it for a year then xandros came out.
From the stopped using the sithware.
But as a repair tech still had to clean up the sewers of micro s#!t on other machines.
Then i started doing forensic work in 2008 so i have quite a collection of utility/ forensic live os’s
Migrated primarily to debian and mint flavors.
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i was interested in hearing how or what made you choose to use Linux? Whats your story?
It was Yggdrassil Linux from the first Linux Bible. IIRC it was 1994 or something like that. My friends and I installed it on a 386sx using a Panasonic parallel port cd-rom. The installation and first boot took days.
Later I started building websites on my PC and was hired at a company using RedHat, so from there I was hooked.
My home computer hasn’t run Windows since 1997(ish). Oddly enough back then Enlightenment was pretty cutting edge stuff and a great desktop. I’m not really sure my 486 could run a linux desktop today, like then, I’d probably have to sacrifice some features. 
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Growing up, I didn’t have my own computer. I grew up in rural Alabama for what it’s worth; and we had a relatively comfortable life by rural standards - but it wouldn’t have worked outside of that lifestyle and computers just weren’t seen as a necessary expense for anything outside of what my parents used theirs for. I was promised a computer of my own a few times, but it never came to fruition. Instead, if I needed a computer, then I relied on whatever the school had. But I was always interested in technology, and I kept up with the computer market fairly well (though not as well as I do today). I’d alwayd felt like I had a certain knack for technology; and I wasn’t merely satisfied with being a user of a computer: I had an insatiable desire to know how things worked. Anyway, at school we used Windows XP machines and later Windows 7. My early primary school years were likely older versions of Windows, but my 6-year-old memories don’t include important details like that unfortunately. My eighth grade year, the school transistioned my class to chromebooks; we were the guinea pigs. By my ninth grade year, the school district rolled them out to all middle and high school grade levels. Coincidentally, this was also the year that Windows 10 came out; and it was much worse than Windows 7 imo. But we’d been transitioning away from Windows at school, so it didn’t really matter much to me; or so I thought. The 5 years that I didn’t use Windows made it so much easier to not get trapped in the Windows ecosystem later on. In my 10th grade year, I was chosen to attend STEM camp at a local university. There we did a lot of programming activities - primarily using a little microcontroller. I found programming the microcontroller the most fun; and it is ultimatelu what made me decide to pursue a career in tech. Afterwards, we were gifted the microcontrollers, but I didn’t have a computer with which to program it. One of the professors leading this STEM camp told me to get a Raspberry Pi. And so, when my dad forced me to get a high school job, I spent my first Taco Bell paychecks on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B (and accessories) and got to work in my precious little freetime. The learning curve was steep, but for me that’s what it was all about. By the time I bought my own laptop for college, I initally dual-booted it. But eventually, it was pretty much all Linux from there.
TLDR: Raspberry Pi was my gateway drug. Before that, my only exposure to a computer being school-owned chromebooks meant I never got locked into the Windows ecosystem.
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Way back in the 90s, an old guy was telling a friend at church about Linux and how it might be good for him to try out if he’s going to do computing stuff at uni.
Well about a year later, I was given a “book prize” at school for the end of year awards. I was browsing the nerd magazines at the newsagent when I spotted a little book with a CD on the cover. It was Redhat 5.2 redistributed by APC magazine (Australian Personal Computer). The book guided you through installation, how it booted, creating users, setting up networking, installing a GUI, printers… And even compiling your own kernel.
I pulled out my dad’s old 486 SX 25, made myself a boot floppy as per the book’s instructions… And about an hour later, I was sitting there looking at BASH. Didn’t really know what to do from there, so I just read the book and tried all the stuff it had - compiled a kernel, installed X… Picked my computer up from my room and put it on the floor next to the old machine and started trying out things like networking, samba, web servers, etc.
And that’s when I suddenly realised you could share the internet with this Linux thing. Ever since I got that worked out, I’ve used Linux on everything that it makes sense to.
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I was introduced to linux by this guy at a LUG in NH when I worked at DEC:
Interview with Jon “maddog” Hall, a true LEGEND of Linux
Still have the free CD that was handed out and an old box set before IBM bought Red Hat.
8 )
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You know, I’ve never compiled my own Linux Kernel. That may change if I get this job that I applied for as a Jr. Linux Systems Engineer 
does compiling the Linux kernel from the AUR count, where everything is setup and you just let’er rip. Took a bit but i have “compiled” the linux kernel.