What was your start with Linux, and then Ubuntu?

[angry_johnnie]

I went from Feather Linux in late 2005, to Damn Small LInux in 2006, to a frugal Puppy Linux installation in 2007, to Kubuntu 7.04 via wubi, to Linux mint 4, to PCLinuxOS, to Mandriva, to Ubuntu 8.04.

I have migrated all of my computers to Linux, exclusively, since Ubuntu 8.04. I used Ubuntu, exclusively, until Lucid Lynx, whichever number that was. After that, I moved to Debian, and there I stayed.

I do try other stuff every now and then. My spare hard drive has seen it all, from Windows XP to Free BSD, but Linux is still my primary system.

[jonkers2]

I had been trying Linux during the mid-90's. Linux was still at 0.x, my computer was a 386 with 4MB (yes: MB) RAM. Starting X itself took a few minutes. Distro's I remember trying: Snow Linux, RedHat 4.2 and SuSE (which was then still very German and included as a CD in German magazines).

That was not too successful: it was still *trying* Linux. And then quickly back to Windows.

It all changed in 1999: I started using Corel Linux, which was very usable. And then Mandrake Festen came; that was the moment I switched to Linux completely; no more Windows anymore. Mandrake/Mandriva was great, until 2004/2005. In 2006 I switched to Kubuntu, and in 2007 to Ubuntu. And it's still Ubuntu since then.

[TeamRocket1233c]

Well, the first distro I installed on my hardware back when I had a PII was Crunchbang 10, as I had to get rid of Win98 at the time and Linux was pretty much my only option, the first distro I started actually using when I got a halfway decent computer on my 20th birthday was Ubuntu 12.10, stuck with Ubuntu 'till 13.04 and switched to Fedora in May, on the beta release of Fedora 19, mainly as I wanted to run newer stuff, and Fedora 18's installer sucked, so I pretty much had no choice but to get F19 beta, as although Ubuntu's a nice distro, one of its downfalls is it's a bit behind other distros as far as kernel version and stuff goes, the latest Ubuntu kernel is 3.8, and the latest Fedora kernel is 3.10.4. Also, I developed a preference for RPM distros, and the YUM package manager as well.

I've also played with Debian, Archbang, Manjaro, and BSD before too.

But yeah, started with Crunchbang 10 on my ancient old computer, then got into Ubuntu for a few months on my current computer, and ran 12.10 and 13.04 in that span, and as of May, I'm now running Fedora 19.

And I've pretty much been into Linux for only a year now as I spent my childhood on Windows and Mac. First OS I ever touched back in kindergarten was Win95, and then I've used Win98, Win2k, WinME, WinXP, Vista, and Win7 over the years in addition to Mac OS 9 and OSX, as my school district used Mac while I was in grade school and switched to Windows around middle school, in addition, the graphic arts class I took a couple years ago had brand new (at the time) iMacs, so I had OSX exposure there.

I've also messed with DOS a couple times recently in the form of FreeDOS. Also, I suspect I'll stick to Fedora for a while, or go to Archbang or Manjaro should I either get bored or tired of Fedora, or should it ever rub me the wrong way.

Unfortunately, the public schools over here are still on XP, although that OS reaches EOL in April, and they're slowly going to Win7. I would be stoked if they picked up Ubuntu Server and Edubuntu though, I mean it would save them in software and hardware costs, as hardware that would otherwise be too old for Win7 or Win8 would be able to run Edubuntu no prob, resulting in pre-existing workstations and laptops being kept in service, and it really wouldn't be that big a learning curve, I bet both staff and students could pick up Unity pretty easily, heck, I prefer more of a traditional Windows-style or GNOME2-style desktop and I picked up Unity instantly, so really, Unity isn't that hard to use as a UI, at least as of 12.04 and later anyways, in addition, Ubuntu and consequently Edubuntu handles pretty much everything with graphical utilities, at least on the desktop, so it wouldn't be quite as hard to manage as Arch or Gentoo would, for example, also Ubuntu Server uses CLI, so the OS would be a bit harder to manage on the servers than on the workstations and laptops. Still, going to Ubuntu Server for the servers and Edubuntu for the workstations and laptops, IMO, would be a better deal in the long run than sticking with Windows.

[lads]

When I got into university in 1996 they had different terminals tyoes powered by a "huge" Unix system and a few PCs with Slackware. In 1997 I installed RedHat (don't recall which version) on my Pentium, dual booting with Winblows.

The first years in the profession forced me to stick to Winblows, but I kept trying different distros at home: Knoppix, Meppis, Xandros, Debian and others I can't remember. I first tried Ubuntu (6.10) in 2007, and that time I got very close to switching to Linux as main OS. Unfortunately it wouldn't send the signal properly from my laptop at the time to external monitors and I had to stick once again with Winblows.

Finally in 2009 I got a new laptop and tried Ubuntu (8.10) once again with dual boot; this was the first Linux distro I managed to use as main OS, both at home as professionally. In 2011 I had only Linux systems booting up on that laptop. I went through all Ubuntu releases on this laptop up to 12.04, always by upgrading, without any trouble.

Although the switch to Linux was at certain moments hampered by technical issues, what really made it possible was the increasing number of FOSS I could use professionally, that allowed me to leave commercial software completely behind.

[Linuxratty]

Nine years ago, I saw this battle between Lindows,later to become Linspire and Windows and wondered what that was about...
I became fascinated and started researching Linux.
My first distro was Linspire and I loved it. later I moved to Klikit (a disaster) Mepis, fedora and Kubuntu and finally Ubuntu. I now have Ubuntu with the classic Gnome panel. ). Sep. will be my tenth anniversary using Linux.

[montag dp]

Two years ago I started working towards my PhD, and all the computers in our lab run Ubuntu (because we do coding and simulation on remote supercomputers, which run Linux or Unix). Within 6 months or so I was using the Wubi version of Ubuntu on my laptop. That eventually broke and I started dual booting. Now kind of wish I could completely abandon Windows, but there's one really good program that is holding me back from doing that. I still have to admit it can come in handy to have Windows installed for those cases where someone has to have something in MS Office format or for various other reasons. In any case, I rarely boot up Windows anymore.

[DeadlyOats]

I started with SuSE Linux, before Novell bought it. I kept using it for a while after they bought it, but they started playing funny with the open source community with their licensing, or something. I started looking for an alternative, and that's when I started hearing about Ubuntu. I think I started with SuSE 6 or 7 (don't remember. It was way before Novell bought the company.). Then I switched to Ubuntu 6 or 7 (it was so long ago; can't remember exactly). Then Canonical sprung Unity on us. I went looking for a new OS again. Tried OpenSuSE, and ended up with Kubuntu.

I'm happy with Kubuntu. It'll be good as long as they don't try to spring Kubunity, or some such crap... LOL

[lads]

I still have to admit it can come in handy to have Windows installed for those cases where someone has to have something in MS Office format

Quitting M$ Office is far easier than most folk think, I left it behind years before I completely switched to Linux. Moreover, in Academia/Research that kind of software should actually be interdicted, it doesn't deliver the quality needed for scientific work.

Once you learn how to use Latex you wont be able to go back. And when you integrate your documents with a versioning system you'll wonder how can other folk do proper collaborative work.

[su:bhatta]

Ok, long story....
Back in 2002, some of my friends doing MCA were using RedHat, i've no clue which version! Just knew that there was these open source OS, which were available free and were a bit buggy but did the job!

The my proffesional life took over and Windows XP pretty much did it all!

Suddenly, in 2010, found interesting ScreensShots in deviantart.com of Ubuntu with Conky! Man I had to have that!
Installed Maverick Meerkat 10.10 and have been on and off using Ubuntu since then!

Now I've got my laptop with Win8, UbuntuStudio 13.04(KDE DE), Debian Wheezy(Gnome 3.4), Fedora 19 Jam Spin(KDE DE) !

I love the GNU/Linux way!
Am sticking to it one way or another!

[montag dp]

Quitting M$ Office is far easier than most folk think, I left it behind years before I completely switched to Linux. Moreover, in Academia/Research that kind of software should actually be interdicted, it doesn't deliver the quality needed for scientific work.

Once you learn how to use Latex you wont be able to go back. And when you integrate your documents with a versioning system you'll wonder how can other folk do proper collaborative work.

I know all that. I don't personally ever use MS Office. I use Latex for writing documents and Matlab/Python/Other language for most computations instead of Excel. Or LibreOffice when the spreadsheet format is useful. But, sometimes people want something to be specifically in MS Office format, and then you're stuck.