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View Full Version : How long have you been using Linux?



fergus.b
March 23rd, 2006, 11:08 AM
Hi.

I thought it would be interesting to see how long everyone has been using Linux, any distro counts. Maybe you can post what you were using before as well if you like.

xyz
March 23rd, 2006, 11:16 AM
Hi-
I'm not sure I can say I'm USING Linux yet...I'd say I'm TRYING!
I got into computers at large only 1 year ago with XP which I barely know! I worked with it for about 3-4months which, the more I get into the Linux world,seems to be rather an advantage!
Enjoying every minute of what is sometimes a difficult path to knowledge.
Greetings!

fergus.b
March 23rd, 2006, 11:30 AM
I first tried out Linux in about 2000/2001. It was Redhat 6.1 but the CD might have not been the latest Redhat at that point. I didn't really get into it right away and had quite a lot of difficulty getting it installed and using it as my primary desktop. Not having an internet connection really hampers you when you run into trouble so I went back to Windows for a while. Since then it was on / off with Windows and Linux until I finally switched over completely to Hoary and haven't looked back since. I said 5 years in the poll but like I said it wasn't full time on the desktop although for my work I've been working with it as a server for about 4 years (web development). The main reason I switched was because I wanted to learn Linux better to help me with my work.

ComplexNumber
March 23rd, 2006, 03:08 PM
since 1997. no proper gui then. well, not at the uni anyway. i was using vi and wrote my first ever shell script for an exam project.

SeanTater
March 23rd, 2006, 03:15 PM
I used Linspire. Now I use Kubuntu Dapper. (Yes, I hear -- Don;t use it as your primary OS -- But I just have to have the latest and greatest! ) I thought about Debian and Gentoo and Arch -- but I have not got up the nerve to try them yet.

nocturn
March 23rd, 2006, 03:18 PM
I started with RedHat 5 I think. It was after the summer of 1997.

I soon moved to SuSE with KDE1, which was a revolution.

I wiped my windows partition in 1999 and it's been Linux only at my home since then.

justleen
March 23rd, 2006, 03:22 PM
I started using linux about 11 years ago, for some school project.. that was on a Red Hat Distro.. over the years i tried SuSe, Debian, Mandrake, Damn Small Linux, Fedora Core. I did switch in between to 100% windows only go back to a linux distro at some stage. Especially the first tries were quite hard, since the user base / support wasnt as good as it is now.. the last two years orso i ran fedora and ubuntu on a VM and dualboot. Just recently i completly got rid of windows again, and trying a 100% Ubuntu! (well, 99%...i still dual boot WoW still doesnt work under Wine... ;( )

TLE
March 23rd, 2006, 03:29 PM
I've been using Mandrake/Mandriva before for 2-3 years and have been using Ubuntu since the 5.10 release

jbennett
March 23rd, 2006, 04:10 PM
I've only just recently started to experiment with Linux (in the form of Ubuntu) and I'm really enjoying learning how to use it. Currently I dual-boot on my laptop with Windows XP but I plan on building a box for Linux distributions only (I plan on trying some others... FC5, PCLinuxOS, etc.) this summer and then making my laptop solely Windows (for schoolwork and such).

Sirin
March 23rd, 2006, 05:30 PM
I have been using Linux since the very first build. Good times. ;)

I read Linus' original mail post before it was famous, in fact, the exact day it was posted. That's how I got into this whole Linux thing. Ah, me, Torvalds, and other friends had a great time coding up the first bits of the kernel. So many memories... :rolleyes:

briancurtin
March 23rd, 2006, 06:19 PM
ive used it for i dont know how many months, but getting close to a year. i started with SuSE 9.3 and used that for 5 months and switched to SuSE 10 for a little bit, then went to Fedora Core 4. after a week or so there, i tried out ubuntu for about a month, and now im with Arch and have been with Arch for about a month and love it. i think im going to be with Arch for a while

kassetra
March 23rd, 2006, 06:51 PM
I started with RedHat 5 I think. It was after the summer of 1997.

I soon moved to SuSE with KDE1, which was a revolution.

I wiped my windows partition in 1999 and it's been Linux only at my home since then.

Ha! September '97, RedHat 5 is when/where I started.

RH->SuSE->debian (various incarnations - hammy, woody, potato)->RH->SuSE->Ubuntu

In '99 - I picked up vmware and dumped my dual boot.... :)

fergus.b
March 23rd, 2006, 08:06 PM
ive used it for i dont know how many months, but getting close to a year. i started with SuSE 9.3 and used that for 5 months and switched to SuSE 10 for a little bit, then went to Fedora Core 4. after a week or so there, i tried out ubuntu for about a month, and now im with Arch and have been with Arch for about a month and love it. i think im going to be with Arch for a while
Thats interesting, what made you choose Arch over Ubuntu? Is that also a Debian derivative? I think Suse is probably my second favourite distro after Ubuntu. Suse 9.3 Pro was a really good release with support for a lot of stuff right out the box like Java, MP3s, etc. I know the reasons why Ubuntu can't do this but its still annoying (the circumstances - not Ubuntu).

engla
March 23rd, 2006, 08:19 PM
Had to use it for my university since 2 years, we run MATLAB, maple and such on Debian.

Switched to Ubuntu at home the last 6 months.

When I switched, I spent several weeks almost full-time learning and trying and compiling kernels and tweaking; I felt like I missed this in my childhood and had to retake it in as little time as possible. Seriously, I wanted this when I was 12!

mstlyevil
March 23rd, 2006, 08:21 PM
I started using Linux in August of 2005. I have used Ubuntu (Hoary, Breezy and Dapper) Suse 10 and I played with Linspire for a couple of days. I dumped my XP partition last month when I realised that I have not booted into it in over a month. Now I am all Dapper and loving it. :mrgreen:

K.Mandla
March 23rd, 2006, 08:43 PM
I actually tried Linux (Red Hat) quite a few years back, but it was so awful that I don't even count that experience. Nothing worked, and I wasn't willing to try to make it work.

I started with Ubuntu at the turn of the year and haven't looked back. I got hooked on Breezy, tinkered with Hoary and Warty (just as an experience), and settled on Dapper.

In past months I've played with Arch, Slack, Damn Small, Kororaa, Knoppix and a few other versions, but Ubuntu is what I like.

taurus
March 23rd, 2006, 09:09 PM
Actually, I used SunOS 4.1 on Sparc at college even before I taught a PC! Got myself a 286 and got Coherent (no, does anybody remember good old Coherent?) on it. Switched over to Linux kernel 0.99pl9 (that means before it went public!) and have been using Linux and some Solaris since. Have tried out almost all the distros out there but currently, have Gentoo, Slackware, Vector, FC5, and Ubuntu on my machines at home and in the office... ;)

bonzodog
March 23rd, 2006, 09:21 PM
I started in 1996 on an SLS server with BSD terminals. In an Internet cafe. At the time, the alternative was Windows 3.11, and I was already into the whole FLOSS/Open Source philosophy by then, so we went for BSD workstations, with an SLS (kernel 1.2.3!!) server on the back end, and that was my introduction to using Pine for Email. I got myself a Home PC in 1997 on a 28k modem, but it already had Windows 95 on it, which I then upgraded to 98se.
However, one day, I GPF (General Protection Fault) 'd it, and I had bought myself a Linux Book with Caldera 1.3 in it, so I installed that and promptly cut myself off from the net for 6 Months while I learnt it, as a SOLE OS (I decided at that point that Windows wasn't for me - too difficult to maintain and use.). In 1999, I switched over to Redhat 6 and got net access back with KPPP and an external modem.

At about this time, I was introduced to the ufie community (http://www.userfriendly.org), and started to hang around in the IRC channel, and was introduced to a chap called Alex Hanff, who is a die-hard Linux hacker and programmer from Lancashire. I went up to his house one night and took my computer with me (a 200 mile drive!), and he Introduced me to Slackware 7.0, which I stayed with until last year with brief dabblings in WinXP (I wanted to play some games and find out what had happened to MS), and Mandrake Linux.

I had by this time built my own 64 bit PC, and decided I wanted to optimise it's use, so I went looking for good 64 bit distros. I had heard about Ubuntu, and although I was sceptical, with it being based on debian (yes the old Slack vs Debian thing), I decided to give it a blast. I was actually impressed and I love the apt-get system, and I currently run Xubuntu Dapper 64.

vertigo
March 23rd, 2006, 09:25 PM
Been on Ubuntu since january and I'm loving it, Ive tried out many other distros as well on a 2nd box I have sitting next to me but have kept the main rig on Ubuntu as it does everything that I need at this present time.