How were YOU introduced to Ubuntu/Linux?

[Mazate]

I'd be curious to know how everyone was introduced to linux. The stories are always interesting.

I was thrown into the linux world by my wife's hard drive dying about 6-8 months ago. I bought a new hard drive and went to install windows xp again but I couldn't find her recovery CD that comes with the computer. I had heard of linux and knew it existed but knew virtually nothing about it. So, I stumbled upon the openSUSE site and ended up burning the iso to a CD (which I had never done before) and ended up successfully installing it. My wife was lukewarm on it but it worked for her until I found her XP disk. In the meantime, my hard drive died not long after that and I switched to Fedora as my permanent OS after buying a new hard drive. I switched to Ubuntu about a month ago and I'm here to stay.

[Dangertux]

I started using Linux when I was a teenager years ago. I used Redhat back then (it was still free). I discovered Ubuntu when my wife wanted to learn to use Linux. I showed her Mint and Ubuntu, she picked Ubuntu. At the time I was using Fedora. I switched to Ubuntu briefly during that time, now I'm back on Fedora, but I love the community so I stuck around. I keep Ubuntu on a VM and play with it. I'll probably actually use it as an OS again when 12.04 comes out.

[Erik1984]

Stupid thing is, I just don't remember how I got to know Ubuntu. Of course I knew Linux by name and through my studies knew some basic nix commands. Decided to install Ubuntu when I got tired of using pirated WinXP and malware cracks. Just wanted to do things the legal way, like using OpenOffice in stead of pirated MS Office etc. But just don't ask how I came to know of Ubuntu's existence :P

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

I started using computers about 40 years ago. I used UNIVAC computers back then. The operating system was very much like Unix. I used Microsoft DOS/Windows for many years; however, I didn't like the way Microsoft was treating its customers. I decided to look for alternatives and found Linux among other operating systems. Linux was not propriatery and I like the adventure of using it. That is why it is the OS I prefer to use today.

[bluexrider]

I started back in the 70's with dos progressed through windows and was introduced to Ubuntu at version 9.04

What is windows 7?

:popcorn:

[thatguruguy]

A mutual friend suggested that I should join Ubuntu/Linux and him for coffee. We ended up hanging out, and knew a lot of the same people and liked to go to the same places.

Sure, we have our differences now and then, but no relationship is perfect.

[TBABill]

Dead hard drive, no reinstall disk and needed something to get me back to work. I researched, found Ubuntu through searches and it seemed to be "most user friendly" at the time so I went for it. I've tried many since then but it's almost always on at least one of my Linux machines. All but one right now, actually. And I still like it...switching between Xubuntu desktop, Lubuntu desktop and Ubuntu desktop at random to keep it fun.

[rtimai]

Back in 1996 I wanted to expand my experience with operating systems, and I unwittingly picked probably two of the most obscure, difficult Linux distros at the time, Ygdrassil and Slackware. After sampling the documentation, I realized I was way, way out of my depth. Back then, for these distros, the best way to install Linux on your machine was to attend a local weekend Linux installation party, where new users brought their machines to someone's garage, and experienced users would show them how to manually configure their hardware, peripherals, and network settings to get their machine up-and-running. Barely. I was literally scared away from Linux.

Ten years later, I switched to running OpenOffice, the open source replacement for Microsoft Office. It was because OpenOffice also ran on Linux that I decided to pass on Windows Vista and re-try Linux, Ubuntu, this time. I was amazed at the progress distributions had made for user-friendly installation. Ubuntu ran off the live CD flawlessly, asking only for a WPA2 password, then auto-connecting to my wi-fi internet connection. The live demonstration sold me instantly, and I have never looked back since. OpenOffice has since forked to LibreOffice, and I continue to use LibreOffice Portable from PortableApps.com off my USB drive at work, where the workstations still run Windows XP, and I work on the same documents at home on my Ubuntu-driven notebook.

Thus, you might say that it was OpenOffice for Windows that introduced me to Linux.

Oh yeah, heh, I came to Ubuntu totally clueless. Ten days after installing Dapper Drake, I was prompted to upgrade (and did) to Feisty Faun. What timing. It's been an adventure, for sure. Still today, I feel Total Satisfaction with the fact that I can do anything my Windows associates do (maybe even more) -- on my Linux system, and every bit of it (literally) is TOTALLY FREE.

HP Pavilion notebook dv6-3012he
AMD Turion II P520 Dual-Core 64-bit

[Gatmasta]

I was running a PC with windows XP 1 GHz processor 512mb ram 40 GB hard drive. I became desperate for something faster, then I found Linux, and I have been using it ever since.

[wojox]

A mutual friend suggested that I should join Ubuntu/Linux and him for coffee. We ended up hanging out, and knew a lot of the same people and liked to go to the same places.

Sure, we have our differences now and then, but no relationship is perfect.

Blind date. Glad it's working out for you. :P

[inobe]

just asked a friend in the early 90's what it was on his computer.

i was sure it couldn't be any worse compared to what was already on mines:P

[Lucradia]

I was first introduced to Linux back in 2005 or so, with SimplyMEPIS in an OS/Support Overview class. The next was KNOPPIX, then Ubuntu 7.10.

Ubuntu came after I decided to search for various linux distributions on the Internet.

[Rodney9]

Around 2001 I found Corel Linux, then Red Hat on magazines then Libranet, then a guy at the local 2nd hand computer mart sold, for the cost of the cd, everything, Mandrake, Slackware etc, I tried them all.

[TheCheggs]

How i came about using it was my father had downloaded a copy of puppy linux late last year and was playing around with it. well sometime later he downloaded ubuntu 8.04 and at the time, my computer was on the edge of being obsolete so i tried it. and i was amazed at how it proformed on my old hardware and by the fact that it was free!

[makitso]

2008, sent away for the Debian distro, 6 disks. When I got them tried to install and it was a disaster. Several weeks after that was talking to a work friend about the experience and he suggested Ubuntu. After looking around, downloaded Kubuntu and did my first install. I was pretty green so spent time on the forums to get help. Problem was that everyone gave Ubuntu suggestions and I was on Kubuntu. So, downloaded Ubuntu and have not looked back. I will say that Unity has given me a challenge so have tried several other distros and versions of Ubuntu in my Virtualbox environment. Due to a bug in Unity, I am using the Gnome 3 shell and Lubuntu on my netbook.

[Retlol]

I saw Linux (Gentoo) in action in a friends house who was doing some IT course in university.

A few years later Win xp died and I looked for a free alternative.

I believed I googled back in 2006: "free linux download".

Stumbled upon Ubuntu.

[ubuntu-freak]

Can't remember exactly how I discovered Linux, but years and years ago I bought SuSE Linux from Amazon and marvelled at the high res and colourful GUI installation. I thought the lizard logo was weird and couldn't figure out how to get online with dial-up however. Anywho, my cousin introduced me to Kubuntu in early 2007 and I later tried vanilla Ubuntu after that. I couldn't stop configuring Kubuntu (obsessive nature) and didn't like every app name starting with a "K", so I've pretty much stuck with Gnome ever since.

[Matti L]

Years ago I got a laptop from my sister which had Windows XP, but was originally a Win ME machine so it was slooow. I tried to install Fedora first which went ok, but after it was running I made some noob mistakes and messed it up. Tried Ubuntu next and everything worked perfectly. Have been using Ubuntu/Linux Mint since.

[sidewalkcynic]

About three and a have years ago, I was using the WiFi in the NYC Midtown Library, when I over heard some guys next to me talking about the Opera web browser. The guy who was pitching the app said it was free, or whatever, and I recalled my mother, she was a programmer and back in the early 80's when we got one of the first PC's, I overheard her talking about Linux - I may have encountered some other descriptions of Linux, as well. And somehow I put the two together, and I asked the guy what Linux was, and he was somewhat like me, trying to remember almost, and he finally articulated that it was a free operating system. That set me into a mad dash, because I definitely wanted to try a different operating system, because I consider operating systems a form of mind control, like language is a mind control - cannot be avoided.

Anyway - the story just keeps getting better and better - thanks for asking, I love to talk about it. So, I went and bought Ubuntu 7.04 at one of the books stores, because I was too dumb to check the library's collection for a copy.

The 7.04 worked fine on a Pentium 2 Dell Inspiron with 500Mb Ram that I got for $200.00 at a Midtown pawn shop in that winter/spring of 2008. I then learned to come to Ubuntu Forums for help in fixing bugs.

[IWantFroyo]

I just finished building a custom computer, and I didn't want to shell out money for Windows. One of my friends told me about something his work used on their servers, that was free. He said he thought the newest release of this OS was called Unbutu or something.

I did a search, and Google corrected it to "Ubuntu."

I tried 10.04, the newest release at the time, and I haven't looked back since.

[Mgcross]

I started with Slackware waaay back when you needed to install using floppies.

I went to Ubuntu when I transitioned my wife from Win 98 to Linux. I have been loyal to Ubuntu since the very first African animal.

I have loaded the last Ubuntu on my systems since Mr Shuttleworth decided that computers sould be used the same wat as smartphones. I tried to like the new desktop, but my wife threatened divorce or blood if I didn't make it normal and sane again.

I know I could have stayed with Ubuntu, used a different window/desktop manager, but I feel betrayed. I have been loyal to Mr Shuttleworth's creation, but he has lost touch and begun to insult the very people who made his distrobution a success.

I am saddened, but I've gone back to the mother of Ubuntu. Debian now lives on this beast, and I couldn't be happier.

Thanks, Ubuntu for the many happy years, and the polish you've lent to other distro's. Sorry your ego got the best of you...and us.

Mgcross
:cry:

[zer010]

Although I've heard of Linux before, most notably RedHat, I think the first time I heard of Ubuntu was from an article in Maximum PC magazine.
This one if I'm not mistaken, http://www.maximumpc.com/linux
The instructions sounded impossibly easy so I was quite interested. I hopped on the next PC with net access that I could get to and found ubuntu.com. Since I wasn't allowed access to a CD-R drive, I ordered one from the old "ship-it" section. My first disk came in and was 7.10. I still had no computer at home so it was just something to have for when I did. Of course, after time I got 8.04 and still had no PC. When I finally did get my hands on a salvaged PIII, I immediately looked for those old disks. Soon 9.04 came out and from then on I was hooked...

[meh_phistopheles]

i'm sort of a novice computer person. i started college in electrical engineering but dropped out of the program half way through my sophmore year. so, i knew off-hand about linux from that experience. one day in like september or october 2008, i made the connection that linux is completely free, and that's the humanitarian thing to do. after making that connection and assessing my own personal philosophies, i decided i was obligated to use linux and did a complete plunge into linux one night where i completely erased windows xp so i had no option of going back. it was frightening.

anyway, on that fateful night, i google searched "most popular linux distribution" and it was ubuntu, so that's what i went with. the experience has been perfect though. i love linux.

[dpny]

I'd heard and read about Linux and had (and have) a friend who uses Linux as his main OS. Years ago, when I got a new desktop, I installed 6.10 on my laptop to see what the fuss was about.

[collisionystm]

My brother was given Ubuntu 5.10 cd's by his computer teacher in school. He brought them home. We had no idea what it was. Loaded it one time, we thought we were going back in time and immediately went back to XP.
... fast forward a few years. I was a Mitel technician. I was putting together my first teleworker server that was running a custom CentOS. I remembered Ubuntu and decided to check it out again. It was at 8.04 now. Loaded it up and it has been quite a ride ever since.

I would call it a love hate relationship.

[yabbadabbadont]

A friend told me about it back in 1996. I picked up Slackware '96 (with the shiny new 2.0 kernel) and got it running on my old 486. I've still got the original CD set. I just can't make myself throw it away. :D

(running Debian now)

[Mikeb85]

I was introduced to it (kind of) by my father, who works in IT, during the 90's when I was still a kid. Then in 2002 I bought a SUSE box set, but didn't really put in the time to learn it. Recently, my Vista installation went bad, so I decided to check out Linux and see what kind of progress they've made since 2002...

I learned that Ubuntu is the most popular these days, but I also heard that Unity sucks, so I installed Linux Mint. Then I figured out on my own that I didn't like Mint (the Mint 'extras' were buggy and crashed my PC constantly), so I installed Ubuntu (Unity and all) and now I'm hooked. Unity really makes using a PC much quicker and more efficient. Plus the Linux base is rock solid and performs well. Better than Windows ever has...

[fontis]

My mate's dad was a computer tech and he had like 5-6 PC's at home, each with different OS's. So naturally my mate was comfortable with Unix and eventually Linux. I once saw him toying around with it and I asked him how it was. He told me it's not hard to get going, but it requires patience, especially the distro he was using. He asked me if I knew any bash cmds or anything (which I obviously didn't at the time, I was like 11). But I was cocky, so I said fudge it, gimme the CD and I'll show you I can get it to work.

So he handed me a Slackware CD. I went home and installed it and I was like "WTF is this". Took me literally like 6 hours of facepalming and reinstalling to figure out that after "login" I need to type in "startx" to get the GUI going.
The feeling of accomplishment was immense. After that, I just kept toying with it for ages until I got it working the way I wanted.

http://ompldr.org/vYjVuYg/dump.jpg

That's the screenshot (I THINK) of my first ever working Slack environment in Gnome. I then got fed up with compiling **** all the time when I heard there were distros with precompiled and packaged **** like .exe files (.rpm's). I dl'ed Red Hat but I hated the ugly icon and the way it looked so I dl'ed Mandrake (Mandriva as it's called now I think) and kept it for a while.

http://ompldr.org/vYjVuZg/kde1.png

That's the KDE screen lol.

Anyway, I eventually went back to Windows because I was a gamer. I still liked toying around with it back then, and I guess I just kept trying out new distros ever since. I hate how Windows turns your computer to crap after a while but at the same time I can't live without games.

As for Ubuntu.. I tried it out when it first came out, I read about some new Debian based distro that was supposedly less trolled than debian (but at the time to be honest Ubuntu and Debian were identical other than Ubuntu having a different theme).

And rest is, as they say, history.

[Chiel92]

Hating windows and loving OpenSource, I just installed it immediately after I bought my first notebook.

[drreed]

Before windows came along, and http and all that, I had Unix Sys V running on NCR/Motorola towers. I "ported" my sys V to the 68020 RISC architecture, and wrote a gazillion lines of shell, C, and even cobol code. Think I even dappled with the fortran compiler too. SCO and others were running on PC's but back then, I hadn't used any of the PC based releases.

A few years went by and even though they became dirt cheap, it wasn't feasible to run something like an NCR Tower at home. When a board failed, you had to find one in the used parts groups. Most people who had a good one wanted a hefty price for them. To maintain one I figured I'd really need to buy a lot of 10 or so and shelve all the parts. My inrterest was aas much sentimental as for any practical reason. Then Red Hat came along. It was sort of like UNIX, growing user base, and NOT WIndows.

So I got some on CD's and installed it on a machine I built from leftover parts. Once I had it working, I went for quite some time just experimenting and breaking things, because I'd never used a graphical desktop and was confused by the X windw system. I tried several others over the years, finally settling on fedora. Then Ubuntu came along ad when they had a release that didnt fail on video card, I tried it.

There are still things I find annoying, like sudo (and whatever that other one is you have to run from a menu lol ummm dont remember but it's a real PITA)

There is no good CAD or modelling software (to this day) although there are a couple efforts. Too bad Google Sketchup will never run on Linux. For general information retrieval and desktop purposes, I think it works fine, does everything windows or macs can do, and in most cases does them better. However, there are still a few applications that dont exist for linux, and I'm beginning to think they never will. I wish I had the time and wherewithall to change that . . .

[PhilGil]

Caught up in the hype of the upcoming Windows 7 release, I decided that my XP box needed an OS update. However, I was not in the mood to give Microsoft any more of my money.

Being a "computer guy," I had been aware of Linux for many years. I had also read that Ubuntu was the go-to distro for Linux newbies, as mere mortals could install and configure it.

Downloaded, burned and booted a live CD and was surprised at how functional and efficient Ubuntu was. Installed it and the rest is history.

I've since moved on to Debian, but like an earlier poster said, I still hang out here because I enjoy the community.

[Mikeb85]

Too bad Google Sketchup will never run on Linux.

I wouldn't be so sure. Google has Linux versions of just about all it's tools and software...

[tulipán]

like 10 years ago, I was told the Ubuntu story and it amazed me. I asked for the CDs and they did arrive. i was in awe. later, i was browsing through articles for a language skills class and found one on "granny-linux" - ubuntu for old comps and untrained users.
so when a couple of months ago my beloved old laptop started having major "senior moments," there was no question what i was gonna do :) my brother suggested mandriva, but for some reason i didnt like it, so our second choice was xubuntu -- and here i am, collecting beans :)

[BillyBoa]

The truth is that for years and when I had time to play, I was trying to install some Linux versions with ancient GUI. I only succeed with Ubuntu to have an acceptable solution. Ubuntu is for everyone and is a huge achievement that they popularize Linux.

[fantab]

About 4-5 years back I learnt about OPEN SOURCE. I was amazed to know what a wonderful concept it is. Ever since I have been learning more and more about it. Meanwhile... there was a lot of talk of Ubuntu on the net in general. On mostly every Open Source related search I did I would see Ubuntu and Linux.

I was having issues with Windows on my Desktop. About a year or year and half ago I decided to try Linux. Googling and Reading around pointed me to Ubuntu as one of the Linux Distro to consider if I will be using Linux OS for the first time. I downloaded the ISO, installed it.

Since then I have tried almost all major Linux Distros with all their major DEs. I have narrowed my liking to Ubuntu and Fedora. I also have, at present, Linux Mint Debian XFCE on my desktop... the third Distro keeps changing. Ubuntu with Unity and Fedora with Gnome-shell are my favorites.

Unity and Gnome-Shell made the divorce final with Windows, otherwise that feeing of windows familiarity was discomforting on Linux.

[TeamRocket1233c]

Gave Linux a shot as a possible replacement for Win98.

[chrisbarnes1992]

My First experience of Linux was about 3 years ago on Ubuntu 8.04LTS,

I had a old laptop lying around and i was indented to kill of some boredom. It turned out i liked Ubuntu so much it have ran it on most laptops i have had overs those 3 years. There will be a long list of laptops there :).

Now Laptop running 11.10, and 2 servers on 10.04LTS. Planning to go to 12.04LTS.

My most favorite bit with all Linux Distro's is no worrying about anti virus, fast, free and NO BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH!!!! :lolflag:.

[peter d]

In 2006 my PC which ran MS Windows ME took ages to boot (go and make a cup of tea slow) and was painful to use even then. MS withdrew support for the OS, I couldn't afford a new PC, didn't want to pay for a OS upgrade. I saw a magazine advertising a Live Ubuntu 6.06 CD and gave it a go. I couldn't believe that my old PC could work that well and I've never looked back. I'm completely Windows free now.

[Toz]

Back in the mid 90s, stumbled on it trying to answer the question, "there has got to be a better way....."

I remember it was Slackware and came on a boat-load of disks.

[Brian0312]

I first heard about Linux back in the 90's while talking with some classmates. I'd always been interested in it, but never bothered to really research it until I got a laptop with a horrible OEM install of Vista that regularly corrupted my ini files for no discernible reason.

On that fateful day when I had done a 2 hour scan instead of my resume, I immediately loaded up Internet Explorer for the last time and Googled the always helpful query of, "Which is the best version of Linux?" A short time later, I was on the Ubuntu website trying my first WUBI install as a trial.

My test period ended about 2 days later and I've been dual booted ever since although I haven't actually loaded windows in like 8 months. I can't see the point.

[Linuxratty]

Gave Linux a shot as a possible replacement for Win98.

In my case,it was XP...
I had heard of Linux from someone I used to write to..
I got curious when I saw the Linspire/Microsoft Court case in Linux news and wondered what all the fuss was about...Well I found out and the rest is history.

[BertN45]

In June 2005 I bought PC magazine and it had a CD with Ubuntu 5.04 on it. I installed it on an old Pentium and played with it for some time. I got interested and used to dual boot Ubuntu on my laptop with XP/Vista, which I needed for work. Since 2009 I am now almost solely on Ubuntu because:

I detected, that I could repair sometimes large Word XP/2003 files using Open Office.
I decided, that I did not want to pay again for the same OS (Vista and Win 7), especially since Vista was half a failure.

I decided to bin the bloated Vista and use Ubuntu instead. I only have XP now on an old PIII, which I use as file server, mainly to support a network monitoring program: "The Dude".

[JoshuaMiller0]

My friend (gggecko on the forums) told me about his set up and I was interested. One time when I was bored I tried installing Ubuntu. I accidentally erased my entire hard-drive including Windows and all files. However I did have Ubuntu and I was forced to start using it. As I used it more I fell more and more in love <3