What was your start with Linux, and then Ubuntu?

[RadicaX]

So how did everyone of you find Linux and then Ubuntu? What was your start in this? I remember being about 12-13 something like that, and hearing about Linux from some PC magazine, and then a forums. When I was a little older, and had been learning more about computers, I again heard about Linux, this time Ubuntu though, and thought it was pretty cool. I had got a liveCD and really liked it a lot. My family did not, and seeing as how we had only one computer at the time, we did not change from windows. (took them forever to switch from AOL to firefox mama mia. Worse web browser in this world I have ever seen.)

Was not till a bad virus made Windows unbootable did they finally switch to Ubuntu. (except my sister, she uses it, but she does not try to learn nothing with it.) It was not the half hour boot times that made them make that switch, it was just that it would not come on. After that though, they have really like Ubuntu, and the speedy way it does things, and would rather have that than windows. So I still have plenty to learn in Linux, and Ubuntu, but I have enjoyed it greatly!

[bapoumba]

Moved to Cafe.

[RadicaX]

Thank you Bee Pooka person mod.

[bapoumba]

[fontis]

It was way back in the day.
I always had a weird interest in something other than Windows and I had already played with Mac. A friend of mine had a father who worked as an IT tech back in the day and so he had a Linux computer running at home. I told him to hook me up. He warned me that I need to read some basic BASH crap or I will be lost not knowing what I'm doing. I told him "friend pls". So he gave me what I later come to see was Slackware.

Back then, all distro's were what new users today would call "hardcore". Anyway, I installed it and was clueless. Toyed around for a long while in my stubbornness to get it to work and eventually I managed to get it to a usable stage. I used it for a while then switched back to Windows to play games.

Anyway, that experience lead me to look for more. And eventually I tried all of the popular distros at the time (Mandrake, Redhat - though I hated the fedora icon LOL, Gentoo etc) until I stumbled upon Ubuntu on it's spawn and kind of stuck with it. I just liked the philosophy behind the community and the distro back then.

And that's pretty much it.

[llanitedave2]

I didn't come from Windows, but from a Mac environment. I decided to drop the Mac when I realized that Apple was reducing functionality in its "free" apps like iTunes with every upgrade. I first tried a Mandrake distribution back around 2002. Then I gave SUSE linux 9.3 a try. It was a bit buggy for my taste. At some point I think I installed both Fedora and Ubuntu around 2005. The Fedora didn't last long. I got rid of my last Macintosh computer, an iBook, around 2007, and I've been using Ubuntu almost exclusively ever since. (Except at work where I'm still stuck with Windows). My wife finally gave up her eMac around 2010, and she's been using Ubuntu exclusively as well. Neither one of us misses either Mac or Windows.

[Snowhog]

Started toying with Linux pre-2007. I tried Debian 'Woody'. Found, tried, and liked Kubuntu. Started with Edgy Eft and became a full-on Linux user in March 2007. I have used Ubuntu, but just prefer Kubuntu, and have been using it ever since.

[ibjsb4]

Started with Ubuntu 8.04 and still got it looking like 8o4

[Irihapeti]

Pure curiosity got me started. I saw a magazine in a small-town supermarket with a free ISO of Ubuntu 7.04. After a lot of agonising over whether I'd destroy everything, I installed it alongside Windows without difficulty. Two or three days later, I joined the forums.

Later on, I played with other distros, such as Fedora, Puppy, Debian and SalixOS. I even had an openSolaris liveCD at one point. However, Ubuntu and its flavours has remained my main OS throughout.

[jerrylamos]

Dapper Drake Beta was first linux that I found useful. Tried Red Hat and some others which were pretty crude.
Mostly use Ubuntu with occasional Peppermint, Slitaz, TC, etc.
Use stable Ubuntu 13.04 lately when doing something important but most of the time on unstable U+1 13.10.
Occasionally play with (x)mir or Unity 8, neither of which are touted to be prime time yet. Boy are they right about that.