I was trying to run a forum in the early 2000s and was pirating Windows Server with IIS to do it, and I discovered this entire other free, legit OS to do what I wanted to do with ease. Back in those days you could install a “LAMP” stack during install which gave you Apache, MySQL, and PHP automatically configured, whereas in IIS I was having to install a seperate PHP interpreter and figure out how to send php scripts to it and back, the whole thing seemed janky.

After that Linux became my go-to for any IT related project, and even more so when I started my electronics hobby due to how you can just make it do any damn thing you want.

In 2020 it became my desktop permanently after Microsoft decided they didn’t want their OS running on my perfectly fine computer anymore.

Windows

Windows me

Windows begging me to create a Microsoft account on start up everyday, even making me unplug my ethernet to get past it. I’m not obsessed with Linux.

A combination of:

• I was very curious about computing and trying different applications
• I liked customizing and tinkering with my setup: Launcher, window manager, icons, etc.
• I was a poor teenager

On the windows side, there were neat apps like Stardock Windowblinds, for the most part, everything was paid and expensive for someone with no disposable income.

Mind was blown when I realized everything I wanted was available for free! My first install was actually from a CD that came with a book I checked out from the public library

On an old laptop of mine that has pretty piss poor specs I ended up messing with the regedit on win10. On the only account on the laptop, I lost admin access and couldn’t change it back. I tried fixing it using a solution online that required downloading Linux and booting it up on a thumb drive. After that failed and I found out that Best Buy was just suggesting reinstalling win10, I just said “fuck it” and installed Ubuntu, which was what I had on my thumb drive. That was a couple years ago. Since then I have switched to Sparky Linux, even though I rarely use that laptop anymore thanks to my desktop.

I’m definitely not ultra obsessed with it, but I do find it’s nice to have.

Windows 10. When your OS no longer respects your choices and you have to fight it every minute, there is something wrong. The creeping invasions on privacy have only cemented my use of Linux

Truthfully, I’m not sure if I would have ever switched over if Microsoft kept the Windows 7 paradigm. But I started my search for alternatives when Windows 8 - already too adventurous for me - came with the computer I bought.

Towards the end of my time using Windows 10 as my primary OS, the realization that the UI is not an inherent component of the OS sealed the deal. As a Windows 2000 fan, I fell in love with the way Chicago95 Debian replicated the look and stability that I had sorely missed.

Steam Deck. Now I have a Framework running PopOS too.

I had known what Linux was but I never really was interested in finding out what it was. That was, until, 2021 came around and I became more privacy conscious. Learning more about Open Source software and it’s philosophy, switching completely to FOSS software (besides ROM) on my phone and then slowly looking into Linux. I was fascinated by it, this wholly new world as it seemed to me… ready to explore and learn so much from. Of course, someone who’s used windows most of his life will definitely think of it as a challenge to learn to use Linux and adapt to it. I started supporting and using more and more OSS and loved it, so naturally I also had became a bit more interested in Linux. After I became privacy conscious, I also wanted to get away from Big Tech and I already hated using Windows by that point. That was because I’ve had a low end PC most of my life, I stuck around with Windows 7 until 2019 where it became EOL and I had to switch to Windows 10. It was an awful experience, running windows 10 on older and low end hardware.

Then came 2022, I had a new upgraded system and it was more mid-range than low-end now. I started using Linux in VMs and learnt more and more about it, I tried to switch full time but couldn’t because of a few things that I just cannot live without. Truth be told I’m still using Windows, there’s just one thing holding me back and all other things I’ve either adapted to, learnt or have found an alternative for. I know some people will hurl insults at me for saying I dislike Big Tech but also use Windows and call myself privacy conscious but It is what it is. I use Linux part-time in VMs and I really enjoy it. As soon as that use case is covered, I’ll be making a full switch to Linux.

Apologies if this went a little off-topic haha, couldn’t help myself I’m afraid

Windows. Windows caused me to get into it.

I was at CompUSA back in the 90s and there was a Red Hat box with a manual in the clearance bin. I think it was Red Hat 4. I took it home and installed it on an old computer. I mainly used it as a server for testing Perl scripts for my own websites but I did use it as a desktop some.

I was a Windows N/T and Novell Netware administrator at the time and the company I worked for needed a “Linux guy”. Most people had barely heard of Linux so I became the de facto Linux admin. I ended up managing an Apache server and writing what was really just an API that ran under mod_perl. It returned structured text like modern APIs (JSON wasn’t a thing yet).

Now almost 30 years later and I still love Linux. Linux powers my life. I run my own email and web servers. I self-host lots of stuff. I’m not a big fan of desktop Linux but I work on Linux servers all day long. I have no desire to come home and fuck with my workstations.

Back when the world was young, I had to produce a fairly large chunk of documentation which I started to write in MS Word 2.0 (which ran in Windows 3.11 or Windows for Workgroups).

However, at around 100 pages, I started to have trouble with file corruption. So since the company I worked with had contacts with Microsoft, I got in touch with them. “yes that’s a known bug, there’s a new version on this FTP site” (we were in the nascent ISP business).

So I got Word 2.0c. Which promptly crapped all over my document. “Oh, yeah, I guess the bug isn’t fixed then”.

Around the same time, a coworker had been telling me about those guys who were busy writing a Unix from scratch (hah, so silly) and who had, already gotten a usable and stable system (wait, really? cool!). So I grabbed a copy and tested that. It ran fine (it did help that I already knew a bit of Unix). And I did my document there, I don’t remember in what, if it was LaTeX or Applixware (maybe that came later).

Since then, Linux has always been on my desktop, with Windows coming and going on a secondary disk or partition, mostly relegated to the running of games.

Sourtcut virus

work requirement, amphetamine-driven endless curiosity of staring at commands and man pages, interest in programming, initial allure of the concept of copyleft

Cost