Whats your story?

[DiscoKiller]

I`m relatively new to linux and these forums, i have read several posts about people saying they have 'made the switch' etc and it suddenly occured to me why i dont use windows anymore.......it`s because i dont have it. hehe. obviously i could 'obtain' a copy, thats easy enough! but i`m so comfortable in ubuntu i dont see why i shoud, i`m not a gamer and i have no compatibility issues. Any hoo, my thread is basically asking, why did you switch to Linux? i was in search of something more stable and secure and so here i am....so go on, it`s your turn.....why did u 'make the switch'?

[prizrak]

I was bored and wanted something fun. Plus I was real tired of Windows slowing down over time and having to run A/V, firewall, antispyware, registry cleaner, system cleaner. Just to keep it running at normal speed and stable. Not to mention registry hacks. Of course a format once or twice a year was more or less a requirenment even with all that maintenance otherwise it got too sluggish.

[Grimlock]

Switched as I was sick of Windows XP pro crashing/freezing, spyware, viruses etc. I started off with ubuntu but decided to give kubuntu a bash and have decided that is the desktop for me. I wish I could make a complete switch but ubuntu doesn't like my MP3 player (iriver h10) But instead of dual booting I am getting my hands on a copy of vmware so I will run XP pro (I have a legit copy) in ubuntu.

[Stormy Eyes]

I installed Windows 98SE on a brand new machine and had it die immediately after installation. I was not willing to forgive such poor quality, so I decided to take the plunge and switch to Linux. I had been meaning to since I first learned Unix in college, but having a Windows install that died with a corrupt registry immediately after installation was more than I could forgive. This was in 1999, mind you, so I find it hard to sympathize sometimes with people who just converted and get frustrated when they encounter difficulty.

[aysiu]

My story (it's long):
http://www.psychocats.net/essays/linuxswitchstory.php

[Qrk]

I got my computer second-hand. The moment I turned it on I knew why... the first virus scan (within 10 min of me turning it on, I should add) showed 700 viri. I didn't have the restore CD's and Windows just couldn't function with that many viri. So I downloaded Knoppix and Mepis, at the same time (fast connection) 20 minutes later they were done. So I burned Knoppix and tried it out.

I loved it. The desktop was nicer than windows, and Konqeror beat IE. (No firefox yet) I used that for about a week, because it was faster than windows ever was, even as a live CD.

So I decided to install to my hard disk, but booting back into Windows to burn it was impossible. Windows sunk under the weight of 700 viri. It wasn't pretty. I tried one last time to burn Mepis to CD using Windows, but Windows forgot I had a CD drive.

So (and I thought I was being really clever to do this) I plopped in my Knoppix CD and burned Mepis. Installation was a breeze (Mepis is easier than Ubuntu) and everything worked... almost.

That was it. I spent a few more months on Mepis, moved to Fedora 2 (just released), than plain Debian, then Debian testing. When I tried Ubuntu 4.10 it was love at first sight.

[darth_vector]

i dont know why i switched. i started playing with unux (solaris to be precise) at uni about 3 years ago and just loved it. i still have my xp box for gaming and vba development, but i use ubuntu for everything else.

[kairu0]

I bought a new laptop that came overloaded with Windows XP and at least 8GB of extra stuff that I would never use, yet would slow me down when I performed any task. Frustrated and too lazy to uninstall it all, I switched (back) to Linux. With 3 years of Debian experience behind me it wasn't very tough to get back into the flow of things.

[LoclynGrey]

Did you say STORY?

I have a story for you...

Before defecting over to the good side, I was deeply entwined in the way of “The Microsoft”. You see I was trained the Windows way, my past is one that is say to speak “shady and full of”, lock ups, unclean shutdowns, blue screens (of death that is) and bundled proprietary software. It was a horrible shameful time, it was the days of the Windows monopoly, an experience that was to haunt me in a professional capacity for many years after. (i.e. hey can you fix my computer, it keeps restarting by it's self, i'm running windows me, 64mb of ram...and i want to play half life 2...)
In the early days I quickly became a prominent member of the terrorists cells discretely called win3.1 and win95. I served my time not understanding what it was that I was supporting (or in fact what the hell I was doing). Like the majority of ex-Microsoft victims that I came across in my travels, I became distinctively aware of the corrupt system that I and they were supporting.

Things had to change, but making the changes were not always easy.
With my Microsoft experience I was contracted for various “missions”, even thought I tried to “go against” the grain so to speak, the tools I was continuesly provided with and advised to use were Microsoft driven, tools like word, excel and outlook express. It was a difficult time, one that nearly broke me, at one stage it got so bad that I was considered an expert in Microsoft Access. Can you imagine that, an expert in MS access, it was truly demeaning of ones open source character.

Two things changed me, one was a brief undercover stint with apple os of which I had nothing but respect for, the other was a showdown with MYSQL vs MS access (MYSQL won by the way). Both lead me on a new course of thinking, “Was there life after Microsoft”, I soon found out that yes there was.

Soon after, i was contracted at a place where there was a different way of thinking. It was a small business growing fast that had little capital to spend in the way of Microsoft licensing and set up of its IT systems. Although they still used Microsoft for their desktops system they opted for their main server systems to be running on a Red Hat Linux platform. (that they did for stability)
This was a new way of thinking for me, a new adventure. At this point I begun my defection from Microsoft and even though it took a number of years I have became less Microsoft and more open source orientated.

[endersshadow]

Well, about a year ago, a guy that I run a site with and I decided we needed a dedicated server. I was a web developer, and he's a marketer. Neither of us knew the first thing about Linux, but the Fedora server was $100/month less than the Windows server, and the site's based in PHP. I learned everything on a need to know basis working with the server, and decided to install Fedora on a test box just to play around. The server was all in CLI through SSH, so it didn't scare me. Fedora was lackluster as a desktop computer, but I liked it as a server, so I just kept my Windows on my main computer and used Fedora as a testing rig and a server. Then, I decided to branch out and try other distros. I tried Mandriva, Slackware, and SymphonyOS before arriving at Ubuntu. At first, Ubuntu (Hoary) failed bad, but that was because my HDD was messed up. I put Breezy on my test box the day it came out. I liked it so much, I decided to give it a go on my laptop (my main comp). I decided to just give it the whole HDD, and erased Windows completely. I haven't looked back since :-D

And yesterday (12-15) is the year anniversary of me first seeing Linux...I only know that because we had to renew our license for the server yesterday. :KS

[Lin-X]

I first tried Linux about four years ago. I was at a ham radio swap and purchased a "box of Linux" from a guy who just went to work for a company using Microsoft. I didn't really know much about Linux and had no specific plan for doing anything with it, I was just curious. The box sat around here and there in my house for almost a year. Meanwhile, I was taking a class in IT administration and we were assigned to give a presentation on some aspect of same. After hearing half a dozen tedious lectures on how to install this or that software, I decided something more daring was in order. I told the instructor I would (1) choose and install a Linux distro to dual boot with Win98 on my computer; (2) configure at least one peripheral item, such as a printer, scanner, etc; and (3) install at least one item of software not included with the distro. The idea was that, succeed or fail, I would document the whole experience and present my findings to the class.
There is not room here to detail all I went through; suffice it to say that I tried to install four or five distros, with absolutely no luck at all. Some froze halfway through the install; one told me it was installed and advised me to reboot --- when I did I got Windows but never saw a sign of that Linux anywhere on my harddrive.
Another one told me to reboot and when I did I got a black screen --- no cursor, no desktop, no nothing. Finally, just when things looked desperate, I stumbled onto Xandros --- no one believes what I am going to tell you all now, but it's true. I timed the installation, documenting every step. From the time I rebooted with the cd in the drive til I signed into the KDE desktop with a working system --- 7 and 1/2 minutes!
I stayed with Xandros through 3 releases, then tried Mepis (too slow on my box), Ubuntu Hedgehog (didn't like some of my hardware), Suse (hates my modem), and finally, this Badger here. I also regularly use Knoppix and Puppy, a live distro that loads itself completely into RAM. I still use Windows for my printer,
which will not speak to Linux, and a program or two that have not been ported to the cause of Light and Freedom yet. I can't afford to play licensing games with Microsoft and I'm sick to death of the constant threats and accusations these guys make to their own customers. I'm tired of "help" that isn't helpful, "service" that isn't serviceable and the neverending excuses and runarounds connected with Windows. (Example: I had to call customer service early in my Windows days because of a bug that made my cdrom inaccessible after installing a Microsoft product. I was told, "You must have the wrong kind of computer." and then, not
even politely, "If you call here again, we are going to charge you $30." ENOUGH!)