How Old Were You When You Started Using Linux?

[LillyDragon]

Seeing as the other topic got locked, and for good reason obviously, I had a better idea. How old were some of you guys when you started using Linux?

As for me, I was sixteen when curiosity got the better of me. XD Borrowed some books from the local library and read up on the subject. (Linux Administration For Dummies, plus a book about RedHat Linux.) I was blown away by what I was reading and started looking around for Linux distros. Installed DSL Linux on one of my older machines not too long afterwards, got to trying out PCLinuxOS2007, and then the next thing you know, I'm settling into Ubuntu 8.04 on a native dual-boot. The rest is history. =P

[cariboo]

What does age have to do with using a Linux distribution?

[mamamia88]

20

[ibjsb4]

You should of made it a poll. The answers would of made statistical sense.

[chadk5utc]

if memory serves Ive been using linux for about 20 years give or take and still learning

[Andy45]

I was 11.

[Jakin]

Been using for about 12 years.

[Bandit]

What does age have to do with using a Linux distribution?

True this.. Only way this can be important is if your trying to see if linux appeals to some age groups more then others.

[grish]

18! Just started recently and I love it!

[LillyDragon]

What does age have to do with using a Linux distribution?

Nothing, really; that wasn't implied. XD Just gauging how early people start looking for an alternative operating system that suits their needs. (From the adult crowd of course; we don't want current minors to announce their age to the whole world.)

I went distro hunting when I was sixteen, but mostly went for Ubuntu because of WUBI (Just to start out. I went with a native dual boot not long after that.) and installing packages outside the repository wouldn't break the system, which was the case with PCLinuxOS, otherwise I might have stuck with that OS before giving Ubuntu a serious shot.


You should of made it a poll. The answers would of made statistical sense.

How would a normal user do that? I never see such an option on the Ubuntu Forums. ;___; Is it only for moderators and administrators to create on here?

[ibjsb4]

http://www.googlubuntu.com/results/?cx=006238239194895611142%3Au-ocqbntw_o&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=how+to+create+a+poll&as_qdr=all&sa=Google+Search&lang=en

[Linuxratty]

What does age have to do with using a Linux distribution?

I have no clue...Ok,old as dirt,which now makes me older than dirt.

[HomelandSecurity]

too old to remember

[zombifier25]

I started with Ubuntu when I was 14. Now I'm 14000 now, and I'm still loving it.

[pompel9]

I was 30 years old, and I am know 31. So I am still a noob on linux.

Started out with commodere when I was 6. And I used windows from I was 16 to 30 when I switched over to ubuntu.
I have never looked back.

[tjeremiah]

19,20,21-ish

[QIII]

Windows was an "alternative" novelty when I first started using it. A plaything. Nobody thought it would really ever be anything but a flash in the pan.

Well, not for real computers at least.

[KiwiNZ]

I was twice as old of half my age

[tuxmancer]

i was about 13 i think ,got my first ubuntu livecd through shipit back then

[Bandit]

I was twice as old of half my age

17? Making you about 35 now?? :D

[KiwiNZ]

17? Making you about 35 now?? :D

I wish

[Bandit]

I wish

I was never very good a word math.. hehe:lolflag:

[KiwiNZ]

Age is a state of mind

[adityamagadi]

19

[coldcritter64]

11 years younger than I am now, using Red Hat 7 iirc, in about 2001. Full time on Ubuntu and various other distros since 2007, 5 years.

[Elfy]

Age is a state of mindtoo true - I'm still 20 :p
Unfortunately bones and joints and age don't always seem to agree with each other ...

I never bothered with linux fulltime till I got broadband - then I installed Feisty and joined here - May 25th, 2007

Prior to that I'd fiddled with debian and a few others I don't remember - oh and something called topologilinux - that failed. So I've no real idea other than I was the young side of 50.

[KiwiNZ]

I started with Linux in the early 90's. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then.

[CodyPy1]

Not that age really matters just as long as we use it and keep it the best distro out there.

[Linuxratty]

I started with Linux in the early 90's. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then.

Early 20's here with Linspire,actually.
Can't remember if Ubuntu started the same year as Linspire or not.

[odiseo77]

Started with Mandrake at 26 or 27.

[COMECON]

I installed Ubuntu for first time when I was 13, but I started to play in virtual boxes when I was about 11 or 12.
Can you guess how old am I actually?
(I don't doubt it)

[Rickubun2]

I'm stating at way over 40, but since I've been using Unix all my life Linux feels like an old, lost acquaintance.

[NeoGreen]

I was 28 when I first started using Linux and my first Linux Distro was Debian, then I moved on to Ubuntu 5.04 Hoary Hedgehog.

[Paddy Landau]

My first experience was Ubuntu 8.04 at age 46.

I had used non-GUI Unix back in 1992, so the Linux command line was quite familiar.

[arpanaut]

It was between Thanksgiving and Christmas 2004, 56 years young!

Heard about this thing Warty Warthog, just had to investigate.
Man, this forum was wild and woolly in those days LOL
But the information was here. Didn't need to join until I wanted to see the contents of an attachment a year later.
Them were some fun times!!!
Still enjoying myself

[QIII]

When I turned 50, I told my wife I still looked 25.

She said I acted like a 5 year old.

"Great!' I thought. "At that rate I should live forever!"

She still says I act like a 5 year old and our grown kids are more mature than I am. My plan to live forever is working.

[BlinkinCat]

When I turned 50, I told my wife I still looked 25.

She said I acted like a 5 year old.

"Great!' I thought. "At that rate I should live forever!"

She still says I act like a 5 year old and our grown kids are more mature than I am. My plan to live forever is working.


Wish I had your sense of humour - :lolflag:
67 - 22 months ago.

[arpanaut]

When I turned 50, I told my wife I still looked 25.

She said I acted like a 5 year old.

"Great!' I thought. "At that rate I should live forever!"

She still says I act like a 5 year old and our grown kids are more mature than I am. My plan to live forever is working.

Keep Up the good work!

[LillyDragon]

When I turned 50, I told my wife I still looked 25.

She said I acted like a 5 year old.

"Great!' I thought. "At that rate I should live forever!"

She still says I act like a 5 year old and our grown kids are more mature than I am. My plan to live forever is working.

At any rate, you'll beat Groucho Marx in his attempt to live forever. =P At least he can say he died trying, if anyone gets the reference?

[Transhumanist]

In my first 1st year at uni, so 18 I guess.

[mastablasta]

must have been 16 or 17. Red hat was the one but could never get the modem to work. so its space was filled by win 98. 15 years later.... Ubuntu. let's see if it lasts. so far so good. though lately i am thinking about switching to Debian (stable) on the linux maschine. never left windows though....

[oldos2er]

My first experience was Ubuntu 8.04 at age 46.


Nice to see someone close to my age. I installed my first Linux distro, 7.04 Feisty Fawn at age 47.

[Umbra Diaboli]

I've been using Linux on and off since I was 12 - alternating with Mac OS.

Mandrake (Mandriva) was my first experience. Followed by RedHat, then Ubuntu.

Now back to Mac OS again.

[thatgamerdude112]

I Was about.. 6? Yeah, My Dad made me switch, Now I love it! Ive probably tried every kind of Linux there is, But i'm sticking with Xubuntu for awhile! ;)

[chili555]

I was a sassy young lad of 58. Yes, fifty-eight.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

I was in my 50's when I first used Linux. In 2004 and 2005, I tried Red Hat, Debian, SLAX, SuSE, KNOPPIX, Mandrake, and other distros. It think the first Ubuntu I tried was 6.06. 6.06 was the first LTS. I didn't know what LTS was so I upgraded the computer running Ubuntu every 6 months until 8.04 was released. I had more than one computer at the time and I could boot from more than one disk drive.

I used UNIX in the 1970's when working at NASA. Adopting Linux was fairly easy for me.

[speedwell68]

Since I was 30 and I'm nearly 39.

[Gremlinzzz]

:popcorn:I don't remember. AH' but i was so much older then I'm younger than that now.
My back pages
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6egCk43qf4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4UcaLHaabY

[m109a3]

12 or younger like back in 1989 with amiga OS kinda like a linux as the CLI or amiga shell , then right into slackware very early on
with a altos 586 or ( 8086 x 4 CPU's )
I'v been a hardware guy , still not much of a software guy , I'v ran linux on every ting from 8086 8088 (186 Back pl-board) 286 386 486 MC68000 MC68030 VOrtex Atonce 286 Card Long Live the Linux

[standingwave]

48

[0rigie]

Recreational user only...

47

[iMac71]

46

[Paddy Landau]

Nice to see someone close to my age.
I have noticed an encouraging range of ages on these forums, from youngsters all the way to the people in their 70's.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

I have noticed an encouraging range of ages on these forums, from youngsters all the way to the people in their 70's.

It is good to see people learning no matter what their age may be.

So much for grandpa/grandma can't install Ubuntu. :lolflag:

I have seen a few older than their 70's.

When I was 8 to 12 years old we had microscopes, chemistry sets, and electronic kits. Now we have computers.

[wweeks]

I started when I got my first computer, 16 or so. I'm on my 5th computer (several are still operational, just retired), and my 4th Android phone and I'm not looking back. I started with Ubuntu, as it was the only easily compatible distro for my graphics card (those cursed Intel integrated graphics cards), and have ended up using Opensuse, Knoppix, Debian, Dreamlinux, JoliOS, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Slax, Bohdi, Crux, DSL, Crunchbang, TinyCore, Mint, and on occasion, Fedora. Even played with PCBSD and GhostBSD some.
I'm also pushing my mother to purchase a Raspberry Pi Model B for my younger siblings to learn about Linux with, sadly they aren't very enthusiastic about it.

[notak]

It was about 6 years ago, when I was still in middle school. Come to think of it, Ubuntu Dapper Drake was my first Linux experience. Like others, curiosity got the best of me, and I decided to try something new. I remember I was still on AOL back then, and it was way to slow to download the ISO so I requested a disc from Canonical. I eventually forgot about my request until one day my dad handed me the package, which showed a handful of people sitting together. I think back in those days (maybe now, too) that Ubuntu was trying to spread its image as "human" or good or something.

Sorry to rant, but since '06 Linux has had my heart.

[Lucradia]

I was about 19 or so, my first distro was KNOPPIX. (Currently, I'm 25 YOA.) My second distro was SimplyMEPIS. Then it was ubuntu.

[Futant]

Just over a year ago, way back when I was 27 :P

[fdrake]

How Old Were You When You Started Using Linux?

hoo this reminds me of when I was in class with Linus in college. good times, good times..... ehhh..

[Paddy Landau]

I think back in those days (maybe now, too) that Ubuntu was trying to spread its image as "human" or good or something.
Canonical's motto for Ubuntu: "Linux for humans."
Wallpaper example (http://www.cabocervera.eu/pb/images/img59404bfecefed46d0.jpg)


When I was 8 to 12 years old we had microscopes, chemistry sets, and electronic kits. Now we have computers.
I know what you mean! In my day, we had outdoors in which to run, play, and socialise. Now we have computers to do that.

Hmm… I think I'll put that in my signature!


I'm also pushing my mother to purchase a Raspberry Pi Model B for my younger siblings to learn about Linux with, sadly they aren't very enthusiastic about it.
LOL. Not everyone gets excited about computers!

[HernanLinux93]

I was 16 when I started using a Linux Distro, and now loving Ubuntu :D

[montag dp]

I started about a year and a half ago when I started my PhD (I was 23 at the time). I had to go through a pretty steep learning curve very quickly with the terminal, vim, fortran programming, and a bunch of software. But now I'm really glad I did and prefer Linux.

[mag1strate]

I was 18, a friend of mine introduced it to me. I believe I started off with Hardy Heron 8.04

[Lemuriano]

Just 45!

[lisati]

Nice to see someone close to my age. I installed my first Linux distro, 7.04 Feisty Fawn at age 47.

I was 46 when I installed 7.04 and joined the forum. Ubuntu's installation options seemed a lot friendlier than the copy of Red Hat I'd looked at a year or two earlier but never bothered installing.

Back when I was a teenager, having a hand-held calculator was a big deal, and few schools in my area, if any, actually had their own computer. I was one of the first in my class to have a calculator - a basic four-function model - and I think the school I attended was one of the first in the area to have their own computer.

[Warprunner]

51 !!!!!! Yep, I was also on Windows 1 as well(it looked like file explorer). Been through it all. Arpa, Mainframes, Mini's, Servers, Broadband, Thin Ethernet, Token Ring, Novell, ...endless list.


And after all that... still don't know crap!!!!! :)

[Paddy Landau]

Back when I was a teenager, having a hand-held calculator was a big deal, and few schools in my area, if any, actually had their own computer.
LOL — when I was a teenager, the printer alone needed a large room, never mind the computer in the air-conditioned secure room! A "mini-computer", yet to be invented, was one that needed only a medium-sized room.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

Back when I was a teenager, having a hand-held calculator was a big deal, and few schools in my area, if any, actually had their own computer.

When I went to university we still used a slide rule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slide_rule). I have mine from university and the manual that came with it.

:lolflag:

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

LOL — when I was a teenager, the printer alone needed a large room, never mind the computer in the air-conditioned secure room! A "mini-computer", yet to be invented, was one that needed only a medium-sized room.

When I went to university I learned about logic circuits made from vacuum tubes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_tube).

A computer made from vacuum tubes had a fraction of the computational power of my cell phone and took up an entire building. With the failure rate of vacuum tubes the computer only worked for a few hours before a tube failed.

:lolflag:

I have noticed that some of us are old enough to remember the days when people shared their software freely. People didn't patent or copyright it. I don't know of anyone thinking about that at all until companies got involved. We were trying to make our home built computers useful and shared whatever we learned.

I have thought that my attraction to FOSS is because it reminds me of the freedom that we had in the very early home computer days. We gave what we had written, someone improved it, and shared it back to us.

[ankspo71]

I think I was 36 when I first started using Linux, which was just before Ubuntu 8.04 was released. My first computer had DOS (a TRS-80 Model 1) then I moved on to using windows computers for the next 8 years before a friend told me about Linux.

[leclerc65]

65. Legal retired age.

[kenweill]

I can't remember.

First Linux distro I've discovered was Slackware. Found the details on Walnut Creek CDROM brochures. I haven't actually used it. Not until me and my boardmate discovered WinLinux.

WinLinux was the first Linux distro (or app?) which we tried to install in school's computer, and on my father's office.

I can't remember when was it and can't remember my age at that time :)

[befana]

33

[chili555]

I have thought that my attraction to FOSS is because it reminds me of the freedom that we had in the very early home computer days. We gave what we had written, someone improved it, and shared it back to us.Happily, a little corner of that world still exists here in the world of Linux, not only because the operating system itself is freely shared, but also because all of us freely share our expertise on this and other forums. I have almost never encountered a problem that I couldn't solve by reading a thread where someone else had the same issue, asked for and was given a solution.

[mohamedbasheerkp]

I was 18...

[somrita]

I was 21.....

[dannyboy79]

It was Breezy Badger and I was 27.

[gnuser12]

I was 18 ... ):P

[DailyRazor]

I was 25 years old.

[TeamRocket1233c]

Either 18 or 19, I'm 20 now.

[samalex]

Just age is kinda misleading since a 13 year old could say he'd used Linux since he was 11 and sound like a boss :)

For me I started using Linux around 1996 or 1997, can't remember exactly, and I was about 19 or 20.

[gordintoronto]

63

[anspectrum]

Was not even born yet....;)

Still in a cradle.

[d4rk0wl]

First started using Linux when I installed YDL (Yellow Dog Linux) on my iMac G3 PPC back in high school. Even though the initial configuration was hard for me, I havent wanted to go back since.

Regards,
- D4rk0wl

[layers]

i was born with a linux laptop

but seriously, 19 - at school, I saw Red Hat first. Then installed ubuntu at home and loved the customization features of gnome2 - make it as you want. and that it wasn't windows
then i stayed for the control - sort of like why some people love driving manual transmission instead of automatic

it's been more than 3 years now, but i am ashamed to say i have a win7 dual-installed for professional applications

[Paddy Landau]

… i am ashamed to say i have a win7 dual-installed for professional applications
LOL, there is no shame in using something that serves a purpose!

[kelcey_s]

I had abortive attempts at using Mandrake when I was a teenager, but it wouldn't play nice with the computer I had at the time. A friend put me on to Ubuntu when in 2005 when I was 23 and I have been hooked ever since. Its just a shame that I need some software for work that is stubbornly not available on linux.

[layers]

LOL, there is no shame in using something that serves a purpose!

let's put it this way - if my girlfriend wouldn't give me any, yes, I would be ashamed if I went to a hooker.

it's also amazing how a win7, office2010 and a three more CAD applications fill up 25GB. how much is ubuntu when installed clean? 2GB?

[linuxcoffeelover]

well the first distro I used was Linux mint 7 when the iso was first released in 09 and still love that distro, and I have used linux since then.

[mandarke]

2001 - i got ADSL and red hat was still free (gratis).

[black veils]

26-27, if i had computer access, i probably would have been 14-18.

ubuntu 11.04, gnome 2.

[bluarcher]

About 50 with Ubuntu 7 I think, really started into Linux Mint 13 at 53.):P:lolflag::popcorn:

[David D.]

I had looked at a few distributions over the years, but really started using Linux when I installed Ubuntu Fiesty Fawn as a dual boot at age 57.

[scarabcoder]

I am eleven and I started about a year and a half ago

[pissedoffdude]

I started playing with Linspire when I was 13, but linux didn't become my primary OS until I installed Ubuntu when I was 14

[Dutchmaster]

age 47 - 1992 - Anybody remember Linspire or, as it was known in the beginning, Lindows?

[cbennett926]

14, wow can't believe it's been 6 years!

[MadmanRB]

Maybe when I was 23 or so, as it was roughly 2003 or 2004 when I first tried out linux for the first time.
I know it was before Ubuntu came out, as at the time Mandriva was the most popular distro for beginners.
But I did not fully get into it until roughly 2005

[eenofonn]

I was 15 and the Distro was Storm Linux 2000... We had a short love affair and I remember the three things I was completely blown away by

1. It actually gave a pretty decent estimate on time to do a task in the installer (something windows still has a hard time doing)
2. It had DRIVERS for my ATI Rage II +DVD that just worked
3. It was completely FREE

I still have the cd that's been completely destroyed but I was able to make an iso of it a few years back when my love for the *nix was rekindled by compiz in Gutsy.

We just celebrated our 5th Anniversary last November and I'm looking forward to many more years to come

[Joelb955]

I was 13. Got really angry at the fact I didn't know how to open a .sh file for my video card drivers. But I eventually got it ^_^

[Paddy Landau]

I was 13. Got really angry at the fact I didn't know how to open a .sh file for my video card drivers. But I eventually got it ^_^
LOL, it's funny how our reactions to events change as we age. At your age, I also got angry and frustrated when I couldn't figure out something. Now, 40 years later, I just get curious.

[auredium]

Ah yes, I remember my first encounter with Linux. I was 19 years old and had just started at my MBO education. A friend and classmate of mine came with this odd bundled six CD version of an operating system. It was called 'SuSE 6.3' and I bought it from him for the price of little more than a boiled egg.

It was in the first month of the new millenium, blistering cold when I first got it. I installed it on my beige colored big tower PC with a Pentium III 1 Ghz Coppermine processor (clocked up to 1.14 GHz at the time)

It was a real discovery of a new system. I had to trash it in order to get it to work properly. Later a change of graphicscard glitched the O.S. even in bash. I moved to SUSE 7.3 and then to RedHat and Fedora but I always kept Windows running next to it.

I believe it was about 5 years ago that I got in touch with Ubuntu. It was a love hate relationship. I loved the principle of Open Source software, loved Ubuntu for being easy to use, and didn't mind learning in order to get it to do stuff it couldn't out-of-the-box. I started using Ubuntu as the only O.S. about a year ago. While it still bugs me I can't runn all of my games under Ubuntu, I still find it better than Windows.

It pains me no small feat that I have to wrestle through dozens of programs and codecs in order to get WIndows to do all the things I want while Ubuntu has virtually no work at all out of the box.

[Paddy Landau]

I had to trash it in order to get it to work properly.
Only Linux would require you to trash it to make it work :)

[SeijiSensei]

I was 45 when I started an Internet consulting business in 1994. We wanted to build firewall routers/servers for smaller organizations. We began with Slackware (on about two dozen 1.44 MB floppies!) but switched to RedHat 3 when it became available. The RPM package management system was an important innovation. We gave Novell Unixware a spin, but Linux was already a better product, and it was free.

[kunai]

I only started using Xubuntu as my primary OS a few weeks ago, so 14 years old.

I had played around with Linux for far longer before, however. My family still had dial-up Internet even up until 2008, so when I was 10 I used to try and download Damn Small. Someone would invariably call the phone and I never was able to finish the donwload. I got so frustrated that I took my mom's laptop to Starbucks to download it with their free WiFi. I burnt it to a disc and tried it out, and boy, was I disappointed. I didn't know much about Linux at the time. I thought it would be some revolutionary free OS that was way better than Windows and OS X, but apparently that wasn't the case.

Fast forward 4.5 years and to Ubuntu 12.10, and it turns out that my original expectations came true. ;)