When Did You Switch To Linux And For What Reason

[Vince4Amy]

Just thought I'd post to this to see if many others switched to Linux because of XP and not Vista.

I really can't understand what's with all this hate towards Vista. I switched to Slackware 8 or so years ago (It took me a while to get used to it as well as I was only 11). I got XP on the week it was released and it was nothing but incompatibilities, BSODs and crashes.

So I switched back to Windows 98SE. But at the same time I researched into alternatives and come across Mandrake, but at the time this would have taken too long to download. I got a copy of Slackware from a magazine not long after so I installed it and followed the guide in the magazine which took me ages to get working properly and getting dial up working was difficult but I did it and it was nice to be in something completely different. No Crashes either cool.

I used Windows 98 for games and Slackware for Internet/Email (Netscape). I skipped Windows XP until 2006 and I slipstreamed it with SP2 to play San Andreas (lol). It was much better than before but it still wasn't great I still got little problems like for some reason IE Would keep resetting my homepage. In this space of time I had installed XP multiple times for other people as well which usually worked good on their systems.

Even after I'd set up XP to my liking and got it going I found it was incredibly slow at doing things that Slackware did instantly. But at this time my copy of Slackware was very old and I hadn't ever updated anything on it apart from Netscape. I visited the Slackware website and found that the newer version was a lot of discs or a DVD and with 1Mb/s Broadband that would have taken ages.

I visited PC World and bought a copy of SuSE Personal 9.1 which was an incredibly polished and worked great until the Updates stopped being supported, I really liked SuSE 9.1 and it was my favourite version of SuSE. (10.3 Was good too)

So I used that for a while before switching to Kubuntu 6.06 which was the best out of the box distro I had used. Very fast too. I used this for about a year when I was offered to upgrade to 6.10 which was crap, but also by that time Feisty was out so I tried that and it had a bug in the Kernel which would cause the Hard drives to not park properly on shut down so I'm not going to use that. Thats when I switched from Kubuntu to OpenSuSE 10.3 Which I used until last year when I finally went back to Slackware and started using Fedora/CentOS. I will probably continue to use these for years to come.

I also purchased Vista for games and It's been nothing but smooth sailing which is more than I can say about XP ever being on my computers. It just runs and it's quite fast too.

[hatten]

I switched from XP too, i have never had vista.

I had problems with getting bsod's when i in Maplestory walked into a sort of big screens that was set up in every city. After reboot i would be spawning at the same place i logged out earlier: the screen which caused me a bsod.
I researched a lot, checked google, contacted their customer support (which didn't help me) contacted my brother over the phone and i learned what the BIOS is but still no fix for the problem.
I got him get over here and we tried different things, we started talking and we somehow came into chatting about linux. I thought it sounded cool and wanted to try it. Since then i have been stuck! That was in october/november last year.

[Zimmer]

Expressing 'hate' towards MS/Vista whatever is probably an anthropological thing (Desmond Morris would be the best bet for a real answer to this side of human behaviour). For those of us, like yourself, who make a choice (sometimes out of curiosity) of something different the basic answer to why we take sides is contained in your own post:


I switched to Slackware 8 or so years ago (It took me a while to get used to it as well as I was only 11). I got XP on the week it was released and it was nothing but incompatibilities, BSODs and crashes.

So I switched back to Windows 98SE. But at the same time I researched into alternatives and come across Mandrake, but at the time this would have taken too long to download. I got a copy of Slackware from a magazine not long after so I installed it and followed the guide in the magazine which took me ages to get working properly and getting dial up working was difficult but I did it and it was nice to be in something completely different. No Crashes either cool.
You got used to Linux.. you feel in control of it, something you perhaps are unable to feel with XP etc. People who are comfortable with XP but have no desire to learn will camp on the MS side, some , who try and fail with Linux, will probably scoff at it (see Desmond Morris).
Personally, it was a desire to have access programs without paying through the nose every time something changed without resorting to 'pirate' copies.
(I have a legal copy of Office, but it will not run on XP:I would have needed to pay a significant sum to upgrade it which was uneconomical for a home user. So I switched to OpenOffice... My home built new (5 years ago) computer needed an OS so I decided on Linux and not XP to save me £80+ and have access to much free (legally) software. Never looked back.. have a new laptop. Dual boot with Vista, left Vista there because I have paid for it and may have a need to investigate it sometime to help someone out. But my first impressions were not great, because I AM NOT USED TO IT and have no real NEED for it. I am, therefore, not qualified to open my mouth and 'diss' it.
I shall remain comfortable , for the time being, overcoming the odd problems with my Linux install, because there is, once you have experienced installing an OS, a new found confidence that if you break it, you CAN fix it without shelling out cash to a third party.. I have created the Vista back up disks, I still have the 'hidden' restore partition, but I am reluctant to test their efficacy based on previous MS experience :)

[tuskenraider]

my laptop had vista home basic or something like that on it when i bought it two years ago... but it was one of the ones that was vista capable... so it had like 512 mb o ram... so i bought another gig..and then downloaded ubuntu... it didnt even boot into vista before the live cd was ran. LOL

so i switched because of physical system requirements.
also... as a fellows sig here says... vista is like a gas.. it expands to fit the container its in. which is totally true..

anyway..smooth sailing ever since.

tusken

[cmay]

i quit because of windows xp. i cant remember if it is four or five years ago.
i bought a computer secondhand with no operative system and i got a pretty expensive soundcard for it so i could make music. i got usb drummachines and keyboards and roland cakewalk and cubase and then windows xp. at the time i wanted to install it i noticed that everytime i plugged into the internet and recieved updates i got something that reminded me of virus. i got tired of it and started using linux and wuit using my pc for music. i found later a distro for audio production and it beats the windows setup in any way for my purpose so i was happy with that.

one day reading in the library i found a newspaper clip from two month after i had taken the xp cd into the trash can where a security company had found that ther ewas a virus /trojan in the xp updates right at the time i installed it and i must have been one of the first to report it as virus attacks.

the company stated that there was no way it could have been a craking of the updates done with out insider acces and informations and it looked as they flat out told us consumers that mikrosoft wrote the virus and send it out them self.

i read more about mikrosoft and virus later on the interenet and found they done it before with a worm designed to attack pirated word programs. so i never go back to windows and i will never trust them again.

in my case it was mikrosoft need to control and the annoying windows xp with its long serial numbers for online registration and lots of bugs and a virus in the updates that made me switch for good.

[chriskin]

i have used almost any windows os there is yet all of them had the same problem that i think everyone has noticed : they are too slow even with the best hardware there is out there. on top of that, it is ethically better to use linux, as most distros are free (in both senses).

yet even if i cannot say i log in windows more than once every three or four months, when i do i feel a little dissapointed seeing how superior their communication software is. this is no reason for one to go back of course. Hell has a nice video call system, it doesn't mean that i am going to sell my soul to get it :P

[Asterio]

I went Linux because I had Vista on my laptop, and all of a sudden, all my networking just died. No wireless, no ethernet cable, NOTHING would connect me to the internet.

Ever since I got Ubuntu, my networking is back working again, and I love it!

[speedwell68]

I left windows in November '06 becuase I lost a lot of stuff to a particularly nasty virus and I thought stuff it and tried Ubuntu 6.10, liked it and never looked back. I have bought a new desktop and laptop since then, both came with Vista and both never got booted from vista, just installed Ubuntu on their first starts. There are 4 PCs in my house and the all run Ubuntu. I will never bother with windows again.

[mamamia88]

i had this vista laptop for 2 years after which it was super slow. i then decided to give ubuntu a try throught wubi and liked it so gave it a full install dualbooting with windows. i reinstalled vista which seemed super fast until i installed the videocard driver which seemed to slow it down significantly. after 2 weeks vista would bsod upon startup every single time. i then decided i was gonna go full ubuntu but while i was at it i installed the windows 7 beta over vista so when that runs out i'm done with windows

[gnomeuser]

10 years ago, I knew how to make Windows 98 do all manners of things but it never really felt fun. Linux was fun, it was a chance to learn new things and instead of shelling out for a new license every 2 years I got it for free.

I just wanted a new challenge, the more I learned about Free Software the more it felt like the right thing.

[kaldor]

I switched for a few reasons.


1) I wanted to try something new.

2) I was bored of using Windows XP. I did not like the interface, instability, bloatedness, Microsoft, etc etc.

3) I got a new laptop and dual booted with Ubuntu/Vista. Vista kept shutting off and rebooting randomly, along with other annoying problems that I did not have time to deal with. Wiped Vista partition and made my laptop pure Ubuntu.

4) I wanted to learn more about computers.

5) I wanted to be in control of what I do.

6) I like open source.

There are more, but I cannot think of them at the moment :)


I dual booted Ubuntu with Windows XP the day that Hardy came out. I could not use just Linux though, as I needed some things on XP that Ubuntu was not capable of (I had a horrible, outdated ATI graphics card for example).

I got my own laptop in June which had Vista. I decided to dual boot just in case there may be something I needed Vista for. Shortly after, I destroyed the Vista partition and enlarged Ubuntu's.

Still using nothing but Ubuntu today. :)

[dasunst3r]

I started using Linux about five years ago just to see how it was like. It amazed me that I was able to do all my everyday tasks. Granted, I've had countless problems, but I somehow stuck with it and here I am with a computer that turns on, works, and does not disturb me with all these stupid auto-updaters vying for my attention or DRM to punish me for purchasing a piece of media.

[gn2]

Switched to Linux on my main PC in early 2006, retained Xp as a dual boot until Jan 1st 2007 when I removed it to free up space.

The reason I use Linux is because I prefer it.

[xpod]

July 2006...because i Stumbled across it and the previous few months with Windows would have made better men than me give up on computers completely.
There are 5 little reason i never really had that option though(see avatar)
I`d never even heard of Linux and although i had been using Firefox i knew nothing what-so-ever about Open Source etc.I`d only been using a computer since that March so practically everything was new to me.

Besides,the kids preferred this too so who am i to argue with their logic.:D

[HammerOfDoubt]

I too never understood how people hated on Vista so much and said XP was stable. I had to reinstall XP five times the entire time I had my old PC.

I switched mostly out of curiosity at first. I had seen a video of Compiz'z desktop cube and thought it was cool. I was also swayed by Richard Stallman's free software rhetoric, and by learning about some of the shadier stuff Microsoft had done in the past.

[FuturePilot]

A little over 2 years ago. I was intrigued by the fact that you could install a completely different OS other than Windows. So out of curiosity I tried out Ubuntu. I'm not sure whether it was the clean desktop or the nicely organized menus or the speed or what but I fell in love with it and never went back. I still have Windows on my drive but it's really only there for the off chance that I have to use it for something. Otherwise I use Ubuntu all the time.


Expressing 'hate' towards MS/Vista whatever is probably an anthropological thing (Desmond Morris would be the best bet for a real answer to this side of human behaviour). For those of us, like yourself, who make a choice (sometimes out of curiosity) of something different the basic answer to why we take sides is contained in your own post:


You got used to Linux.. you feel in control of it, something you perhaps are unable to feel with XP etc. People who are comfortable with XP but have no desire to learn will camp on the MS side, some , who try and fail with Linux, will probably scoff at it (see Desmond Morris).
Personally, it was a desire to have access programs without paying through the nose every time something changed without resorting to 'pirate' copies.
(I have a legal copy of Office, but it will not run on XP:I would have needed to pay a significant sum to upgrade it which was uneconomical for a home user. So I switched to OpenOffice... My home built new (5 years ago) computer needed an OS so I decided on Linux and not XP to save me £80+ and have access to much free (legally) software. Never looked back.. have a new laptop. Dual boot with Vista, left Vista there because I have paid for it and may have a need to investigate it sometime to help someone out. But my first impressions were not great, because I AM NOT USED TO IT and have no real NEED for it. I am, therefore, not qualified to open my mouth and 'diss' it.
I shall remain comfortable , for the time being, overcoming the odd problems with my Linux install, because there is, once you have experienced installing an OS, a new found confidence that if you break it, you CAN fix it without shelling out cash to a third party.. I have created the Vista back up disks, I still have the 'hidden' restore partition, but I am reluctant to test their efficacy based on previous MS experience :)

I would agree with this. I feel a lot more comfortable and a lot more in control in Linux than Windows.

[cptrohn]

I just switched from Windows to Ubuntu a couple of months ago...

I had LOTS of problems with XP with my old laptop, constant crashes and bugs that made XP a pain to deal with really... that machine was Vista ready as well... So I paid to upgrade to Vista and had problems with it as well.. it wasn't really stable and it ate up a HUGE amount of my resources... That laptop ended up getting the keyboard trashed and I was looking for a new computer anyway So I got a Compaq a900 with Vista pre-installed... Again nothing but problem, crashes all the time etc... and these 2 machines had PLENTY of resources for Vista... Started talking to a friend at work about Linux systems because he was really into them So I started with Puppy Linux on my old desktop, I was amazed at how it brought that old machine right back into being relevent and usable today (it was a win98 machine).. So I replaced the keyboard on the old laptop wiped the HD and loaded Ubuntu 8.10 onto it.. LOVED it from the start I then added the KDE desktop to it and liked it even more. By this time I was ready to ditch Vista and Windows all together after I was a little more comfortable with Linux and wiped the HD on the new laptop and put Kubuntu on it and I have never looke back... there is not a time that I think "Man I wish I still had windows" I enjoy the Linux better, I enjoy the great support here and on other forums (much better than I ever had with MS) I enjoy the fact I don't have to constantly on the look out and paying out big money for Windows Live, anti-spyware, anti-malware and costing my system resources by having to have all those different apps.. I like the fact that if something goes wrong I have the ability to fix it AND to have somebody just a mouse-click away that can help explain WHY it happened as well.

And probably more so, things that I always WISHED I could do in Windows.... well I discovered that folks in the Linux community were already DOING those things and had been for a long time...

I don't think I'll ever be a windows user again, I've seen the difference and I love it.

[jflaker]

3 new computers with Vista

ALL 3 crashed and wouldn't boot within 6 months of being set up, one did this 5 times

Now 2 of the 3 are Ubuntu and my wife is the hold out....but with good reason, Lexmark printer isn't supported in Linux.

[gletob]

I switched to ubuntu in June of 2007. I switched not because I was tired of Windows XP, but because 1. Ubuntu was free (I was 12) 2. Unsupported Wubi had just come out. (I was scared of the whole live cd install process) 3. I was interested.

Although I got rid of Wubi, my install always got messed up.

[ryanjanssen]

Basically I was getting bored of OS X and wanted to try something different, I still use OS X about half the time. I have lots of respect for the open source community and I really like the ideas behind linux and open source software. I am considering buying a netbook with linux pre-installed for my next laptop

[Naiki Muliaina]

Started using Mandriva / Ubuntu 4-5 years ago when i saw it on the front of Linux Magazine, and Mandriva got a dead as a doornail XP laptop working and usefull again. Not only that but faster and prettier too.

Moved to Ubuntu and its derivatives and have been distrohopping scince. Made the full switch and deleted my last XP partition during Hardys Alpha. Ive installed XP once scince, took it back off within 3 days cause it was a waste of space on my hard drive (isnt it always? ^^ ).

I stay with Linux for 2 reasons. First off, i dont like Microsoft. Secound and much more importantly, i like Linux. Even if i wasnt a bit anti MS, and even iff Linux cost money to buy, i would still use it because i like it. It does everything i need and more.

[pedja_portugalac]

1. Security
2. Personal opinion about microsoft monopoly and spy politic
3. Stability
4. Speed
5. Great community support
6. Openness and freedom
7. Power

[Speed Demon]

I used Fedora Core 6 at the age of 9, because my Windows XP machine died. But soon I realized how much "easier" it was. So I ended up using Ubuntu and Fedora in Virtual Machines till I got my own computer at the age of 11, and stuck Fedora 9 on there. OMG.... F9 did not play nice with WPA wireless (even though it was desktop, I had to use wireless for a while). Ubuntu and Arch Linux have been pretty good for me, but Arch is a little hard to use and did not play nice with VNC. Ubuntu Intrepid SUCKS... way too buggy. I have actually found my Kubuntu Jaunty Alpha VM to be more stable. Ah well, whatever. So there's my story =)

[Chris Musampa]

My first experience with Linux was 18 months ago when I installed AsteriskNow to replace the old knackered analog PBX at work so we could go VOIP and get more lines for less money.

I dual booted my home laptop with XP/Ubuntu last March just out of interest and after a week or so of tearing my hair out with my TV card (was a whisker away from giving up) it became my preferred OS as it made this tired old laptop work a bit faster.

I'd never had any problems with windows and in my personal experience Ubuntu is no more stable, but I like the free software philosophy and have enjoyed the learning experience.

[arsenic23]

I'd been using linux off and on since about 1997, but I never really got into it since there was nothing I knew how to do with it that I couldn't already do on another platform. So I mostly used it out of curiosity but never for more then a week at a time or so.

I started using it as my primary environment in late 2005, when I got my first laptop ( I'm still not much of a laptop person even now ). I tried a few linux distros out on it and found that nothing I was going to do on that laptop in Windows was much of a problem in linux. I settled on Ubuntu Breezy, and as I got used to using it I discovered just how powerful linux was. Before the end of the year I'd switched over nearly all of my PCs to some form or varient of Debian or another.

I don't hate Microsoft, I'm not an ardent supporter of Open Source (though I appreciate it quite a bit), I wasn't chased away by Vista impressions or viruses, I just found that I really like simple text config files and the ability to script just about any repetitive task in python or bash.

I could more then likely do everything I do in linux in Windows or OSX, but I can make a much more efficient and comfortable environment for myself in Ubuntu/Debian.

[Silent Warrior]

I made the switch when I hit... a little snag with XP's EULA. Oh well, I guess I won't be using my mother's XP-CD she got with the leased PC again. :o
In short, I was between OSes with a just upgraded PC - THANK YOU, hardware-monitoring DRM-bells-and-whistlies! Well, okay, the change in system specs was, you could say, radical, so any system going by that would have a seizure and a half, but it still annoyed the **** out of me. An internet-friend of mine recommended Ubuntu - 6.06 at the time - so I went ahead and got that installed (not that I have any idea about how I actually got the installer-ISO). At that point, I also learned why you shouldn't by Creative - as part of the upgrade was going from a Live! Platinum 5.1 to X-Fi ExtremeMusic, which didn't get working drivers until last summer, or whenever it was. I don't think I ever had a virus - although Avast did report a potentially false positive in MS's drivers for their Sidewinder gamepad of old. Hilarious, that. No problem at all, either with '98 or XP. Just - 'Oi! You upgraded! Dammit, don't use your mom's installer!' (Sheesh, you'd think that with that price-tag, OSes are automatically family-concerns...)

So, now over the summer I'm planning to be a bit promiscuous with my secondary machine - trying out the Win7 beta, looking at Fedora, SUSE, Mandriva... Linux r teh fUn!

[bashveank]

about 3 years ago, switched because Windows crashed and I wanted to try something different...

[Fenris_rising]

10 months ago for me. I had touched on Linux a few times before but failed to appreciate what was in front of me. Plus I wasn't understanding the need for CLI and "why-the-hell-isn't-my-hardware-working-I-don't-understand-I'm- putting-'Insert windows variant here'-back-on".

Well that all changed didn't it. I had become very jaded with XP. I felt constrained by the OS and the software of any note that was available to do things I fancied having a go at was too costly.

On top of that Microsoft's bad press 'even taken with a pinch of salt' was getting my attention and I can't say I was impressed with the apparent 'crushing' of all opposition and basically underhand methods therein.

My conversion was abrupt and accidental. I failed to grasp the partitioning of my drive using the ubuntu ISO I'd burnt to a cd and just decided "Sod it, have the whole drive" :) How blessed was I with that decision? Very!!

I don't hate Microsoft but I despise their business methods and the FUD war. I once also craved an Apple Mac....... But not now I am even glad to not want one I am propriety free and it's great.

regards

Fenris

[Arkenzor]

My father started using Linux when I was still a kid (probably around 2000), and even though I grew up using Windows on my own computers I always had a very clear notion that Linux was simply superior, only unable to run my games and harder to set up (I had very vivid memories of my dad kicking the wall next to his computer at 2 am while I was trying to sleep).

I actually ended up installing Linux (Ubuntu 7.04 to be more accurate) on my laptop when I started my CS studies and some fellow students held an improvised installfest, and never looked back. It was more stable, more usable and way more fun than XP. And free (as in freedom. Beer I don't care, it's not like I'd payed a cent for my Windows installs).

I was pretty adept at MMOs at the time but quickly stopped playing altogether because I was always in Ubuntu and it was a pain rebooting just for that.

[HammerOfDoubt]

Ubuntu Intrepid SUCKS... way too buggy.

I think you should speak for yourself.

[Vince4Amy]

I think you should speak for yourself.

As I said in my original post I haven't had any success with Ubuntu since 6.06, since then it's been buggy and bloated for me.

[HammerOfDoubt]

As I said in my original post I haven't had any success with Ubuntu since 6.06, since then it's been buggy and bloated for me.

Saying it's been buggy and bloated for you is different from making blanket caps-lock statements that the OS "SUCKS", especially on a forum intended for users of said OS.

[lykwydchykyn]

I started fiddling with it in 2003, but once I got my wireless working with SimplyMEPIS back in 2004, I slowly booted to Windows less and less. I swapped over my machine at work without really asking permission (easier to ask forgiveness, after all), and it seems nobody had a problem as long as I got the job done.

After that, I migrated all the home machines, and we just eventually stopped bothering with Windows except for rare specialized tasks.

I don't think it was hatred (though working in tech support you do tend to develop a hatred for whatever MS products you have to support), I think I just got hooked on the power of Linux.

[Vince4Amy]

I've only used Mepis for the sake of trying it out, I never liked it for some reason, it just didn't feel right and it never had JFS support, however I think that Warren is doing an awesome job.

[JackieChan]

I heard about Linux all over the Internet, and researched a bit into it. I was quite impressed. I went to youtube and watched some videos of people showing off the eyecandy Compiz features and thought it looks cool, I should try it out some time.

Around October or September of 2008, I installed Ubuntu 8.04. I accidentally installed it over my Windows XP partition and lost all my files. I was dreading this, I lost so much stuff. Lost tons of music and videos. Ubuntu 8.04 turned out to be really buggy. The audio would randomly stop working all the time, my router didn't work with Ubuntu (I had to directly connect to the cable modem) causing me to not be able to access Xbox live or play online on the Nintendo Wii, and it would crash all the time and would not let me click anything so I had to restart all the time. I was about to go back to XP, but decided I'd give Ubuntu 8.10 a shot. All the problems ceased. I'm enjoying it a lot. Took a while to adjust to not having Yahoo messenger, but I learned to like Skype and Pidgin a lot more.

[erebus314]

My old laptop broke, so when I got the new one I thought I'd try something a bit new. I knew some people who had used ubuntu, and my old astronomy department used to use kubuntu. I preferred the look of them to windows. I also believe strongly in the open source movement and wanted to be able to use an OS that typified that. I also did it for the screensavers.

[xpod]

I also did it for the screensavers.

Classic...
I can see that ending up in a sig or two:D

[Weeble818]

my computer crashed and windows screwed me over, salvaged my files via e-sata and voila! ubuntu.

[gjoellee]

I switched to Linux for about 1,5 years ago because Windows crashed, and I was tired of getting viruses because other people in my family used Internet Explorer!

Not it is Linux on the computer, I use it and everyone else has bought a new laptop with Vista. Now I sit down computing and the other's are doing a Windows disk recovery because of a crash (caused by putting in a USB stick) :D

[albeano2004]

I'd been using Linux on and off since around 2002/2003. Started off with Mandrake (don't remember the release), but hardware issues pretty much killed the Frankenstein box I was running my dual boot Mandrake/Windows 98SE on. Still, I liked what I saw, and when I went back to Windows, I kept it in mind.

Then a work colleague gave me a copy of Ubuntu Hoary, tried it on an old box, again liked what I saw, again hardware issues dogged the install. Then I ran Dapper Drake for 3 months over my summer holidays, but going back to school 'required' me to use Windows again. When I got my laptop, that became a Ubuntu only machine, and that was how I kept up with the latest releases.

Finally, one day Vista networking stopped working entirely on my flash new box. I reinstalled, then two days later it happened again. Halfway through installing a second time in a week (not happy about that at all), I decided "stuff this, I'm going to Linux full time". Some browsing with the Hardy Live CD revealed that most of the games and applications I cared about either worked under WINE (I was already using mostly Open Source software on Windows anyway, purely because I liked those applications better). So the rest is history :D. Any Windows stuff I needed to do was done in a VM, using either Virtualbox or VMWare. I use Linux because it appeals to me - the way it works, the principles behind Open Source software, and so on.

Whew, sorry for the long reply :D

[lykwydchykyn]

I've only used Mepis for the sake of trying it out, I never liked it for some reason, it just didn't feel right and it never had JFS support, however I think that Warren is doing an awesome job.

Yeah, I still think it's a good distro, I just kind of outgrew it. It's a really great beginner out-of-the-box experience, in my opinion a bit better than Ubuntu in that respect. But you start tinkering and wanting newer versions of packages and things start going bad from there, especially for qt-related things. I think a lot of derivative distros are like that.

Anyway, I'm OT. Sorry!

[spupy]

I had absolutely no idea what I was doing when I first installed Linux (Ubuntu 6.something) on my laptop. If only I knew what I was getting myself into... :D

[Corfy]

I started using Linux four years ago.

There were several things that happened in short order to convince me to give it a try.

First, we got high-speed internet (you have to admit, downloading a 700 MB .iso file over dial-up would be a chore).

Second, I got tired of running anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-adware, defragging, and firewalls only to have something break into my system and force me to spend hours trying to track it down or reinstall everything.

Third, I started hearing about the then upcoming "Longhorn". Even in late 2004, it seemed the only feature I heard about was how great the new Aero interface was going to be. Well, I don't know about anyone else, but in my opinion, eye candy does not an operating system make. And with all of the problems XP has with malware, registry corruption, etc., the best thing Microsoft could find to say about "Longhorn" was how great it would look.

Fourth, a co-worker brought me his personal computer complaining he thought he had a virus and asked if I would look at it. Well, the 90-day anti-virus program that he got with his computer expired two years before. He didn't have "a virus", he had 93, and he refused to reinstall everything. So I spent a week working on that computer.

Fifth, I got a new harddrive for my computer, which meant I had a lot of extra space to work with.

Finally, I came to the realization that I was using a lot of software that was found on Linux. Programs like Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org, GIMP, Gaim (as it was known then... now Pidgin), etc.

So I started looking into Linux. I had heard of it for nearly a decade by that point but never tried it. Heck, I never even saw it before. Unfortunately, I didn't know anyone who used Linux, so I was pretty much on my own. After doing a lot of research online, I chose Debian, in part because I liked what I read about apt-get and in part because it was a distribution that had been around for a while (I read some reviews on the new distro called Ubuntu, but it had only had one release by then, and I wanted one that was a bit more established... I didn't want to get used to a distro that would disappear on me).

So in February 2005 (I don't remember the day, although looking back I wish I knew what it was), I installed Debian 3.1 Sarge (then "unstable", although it stabilized a few months later). Unfortunately, my experiences installing Debian was anything but easy. I had tried a LiveCD earlier and had an idea what to expect, so I knew something was wrong. But it took me two weeks to find out what the problem was (which turned out to be fairly minor, but as a newb, I had no idea).

Once it was working, I loved it. But my experiences installing it made me somewhat reluctant to rely on it. That November, shortly after Ubuntu came out with it's third release, and after hearing about Ubuntu everywhere I went online (and knowing it was based on Debian but was supposed to be easier to install), I decided to try it. I backed up my data (what little I had because I didn't trust Linux fully just yet), and installed Ubuntu over Debian. This time, I had no trouble with the install.

I have been hooked ever since. By the time 6.06 came out, I was using Ubuntu more at home than XP. By the time 6.10 came out, I was ready to ditch XP at home entirely (although my wife wouldn't let me at that time... now, our home desktop is Windows free, but her personal laptop is still dual-boot... she is transitioning, though).

I can't honestly say I hate Vista. However, I can say that I have yet to sit down in front of a Vista computer. But even after Vista was released, the only reason I keep hearing about why to upgrade to Vista (presumably from XP) is the Aero interface. (Oh, granted, there are a few other reasons, but you almost have to dig to find them, so they must not be that important, but they don't seem to outweigh the "costs", both financially and in system resources, and for every reason I hear to upgrade, I hear an equally valid reason not to upgrade.)

Two years ago (shortly before Vista and Office 2007 were released), I made a New Year's Resolution to never use my own money to purchase another Microsoft product. So far, I have kept that resolution. And while my wife hasn't given up XP just yet, she has agreed with me on that resolution (her laptop was purchased before that).

[penguindrive]

I switched a year ago because of people on youtube I subscribed too talking about it, I was intrested and ordered a preburnt ubutnu cd but got impatient waiting for it and tried to install via unetbootin.
It didn't install and i ended up nuking vista by accident.
Then the disc came and I was able to install it sucessfully, but wireless didn't work.

I bought a netgear wireless PC card from wallmart which worked out of the box and I havent looked back since then :popcorn: .

[davidryder]

Mac's are too expensive and aren't flexible enough and I was tired of dealing with licensing issues on Windows.

I love the Linux community and more specifically the size and activity of the Ubuntu community :D

[Von-Dyke]

I was simply interested. I never had problems with XP, but at the same time it was never fun. Ubuntu is an entirely new experience, new learning, new community. I have to say, so far, that i enjoy using it more than i enjoy using XP - And thats after only a week of having Ubuntu. Now im already resizing the partitions to make Ubuntu dominant and having XP simply for LAN Gaming.

[SunnyRabbiera]

I started playing with linux back in 2004, when XP had all those security issues and updates.
Jumping between service packs was a nightmare, SP1 broke my system and SP2 did not fare any better.
XP's security issues became quite clear between my husband and I, so much that we were thinking about buying a Mac at one point.
But then I discovered Linux, my first two tries with it were bad but I didnt give up.
Finally I learned of Mepis Linux and my linux use became quite regular from then on.
Now I use linux as my main OS, my husband a longtime windows user is right behind me and is almost ready to dump windows entirely.