What was your reaction the first time you used Linux/Ubuntu?

[VCoolio]

I was completely fed up with Windows and tried Ubuntu 7.10. It was enlightenment. I hardly ever booted Windows since, except at work. Linux can be as much a pain in the rear as Windows, but at least it's solvable. Windows *just* doesn't work and may even crash. Linux *just* works, and if it doesn't, it tells you why, so you can solve it. For me, that's the difference. It has a terminal that talks back and that does what you tell it to do. No F1-help asking if you plugged it in correctly or else suggesting you reboot. Also, linux is cheap as (not) in beer. But for me it's honestly the freedom that counts. Linux has a learning curve and yet I felt in control from the first day. With Windows, I never have that.

[Afnan]

i was using windows for as long as I can remember and I was never quite fully satisfied with it. It just had issues after issues and I kept getting infected with virus and spending money on anti virus every year and still getting rootkits and malwares. Updates of windows kept bloating and eating away my hard drive, and it used to get slow and laggy. I finally installed ubuntu and to be honest everything looked great, linux in my opinion looks GREAT! Most of the desktop environments I have checked out were all really sexy and amazing looking and I did my research and found out linux was just perfect for me. So now I have switched to linux completely and been using linux for some months (around 3) and honestly, I am completely happy with it. Also Linux runs so fast on my machine (compared to win8) and its just still the same even after installing loads of softwares on it. Snappy, fast, secure & stable and runs all my programs that I need, everything I need on an operating system I found on linux.

[Sweet_Baby_Jamie]

My parents gave me their old Windows XP computer when they bought a fancy new computer and thought I was old enough to have a computer. And besides I needed a computer for school so they gave me their old one. But it's older than me! It was so slowwwwww. But I was just glad I had one. But then support ended for Windows XP and I wondered if I would have to give up having my own computer. I Googled "restoring an old computer" and found several links. The best ones offered a completely free operating system to replace Windows and since I had nothing to lose, I dared. I chose a distro called LXLE because it looked easy and had a "paradigm" called XP. So it would not be too different from what I was used to.

It installed easily in about 25 minutes! And it was beautiful! And best of all, it was FAST! It came with Libre Office, Seamonkey, PDF reader all the stuff I needed for school. I was amazed, stunned, and joyful! Now I had a real computer that was as fast as my parents' fancy new one, and I didn't even spend any money to make my computer zoom fast, functional, and pretty.

That isn't even the best part of the story because after that my parents thought I was some kind of computer whiz kid. "The computer store couldn't even make it run like this, Jamie," they said. For the rest of this cool story, click on my signature!

[oldos2er]

The first time I successfully installed Ubuntu I experienced a great sense of relief and satisfaction; that was in 2007. I hadn't tried to install Linux (Slackware) since the mid 90s, and having never managed to do so successfully, gave up.

[kurt18947]

My hands-on introduction to linux was using Mepis. I had been disenchanted with Microsoft since learning of their dirty trick used in building their monopoly. I was surfing around and read about this download that would run off a CD and didn't need Windows. Really? I downloaded it and burned to CD, rebooted on a Thinkpad and ..... Holy Cow!!! Wifi works, Firefox installed by default, OUTSTANDING!!! Open Office was not yet usable for my purposes so I remained primarily a Windows user by necessity. Then I heard about Ubuntu - I think it was 8.04 - downloaded that and oh my goodness, I can do most things I needed to do with this thing. I still keep a Windows install around, mostly for hardware compatibility reasons but those needs are becoming less and less frequent.

[yetimon_64]

The first time I successfully installed Ubuntu I experienced a great sense of relief and satisfaction; that was in 2007. I hadn't tried to install Linux (Slackware) since the mid 90s, and having never managed to do so successfully, gave up.

Same here with the sense of relief and satisfaction, and also in 2007 (on Gutsy Gibbon). Discovered Gutsy after doing a search for "Linux distros" in November '07 and Ubuntu caught my eye. Tried Gutsy and have been on Ubuntu, and a bit later on Debian, installs since.

I first installed and ran Red Hat 7 alongside Win98 in a dual boot set up in about 2001 or 2002, couldn't get a good grasp of it back then and gave it up after a couple of months use. Ubuntu in 2007 has stuck here for use ever since .

[Skaperen]

What was your reaction the first time you used Linux? ... "woot! now i have a real computer"

[yoshii]

I am still kind of in the honeymoon phase of Linux because this is now the longest I've used Linux and I've decided to permanently use Linux instead of Windows. I still keep tabs on Windows versions to learn about how to run those too, but it seems like Microsoft always installs more and more annoying features. And it's also so expensive.

Linux in contrast is such a welcome relief. If I wasn't as much of a hardcore computer user, something as simple as WattOS would be enough. But I do music and photography and illustration so I really like Ubuntu Studio. I also like the support.

[p-hodgkiss75]

I finally lost it with Windows when I was trying to complete an important document and yet more updates brought my computer to a crawl. I detest the arrogance of Microsoft and the spyware and advertising that is rife within it. I downloaded Ubuntu to a USB pen, tried it for 10 minutes - then installed. It's not the strange new world I thought it would be. There are new ways of doing things - but as an older user who started his first computer with a C:// prompt it feels like a return to something more akin to "proper" computing. I just "bench marked" Ubuntu against Win 10. From power on to completing a Firefox search Ubuntu: 35 seconds, Win 10 2Min: 40 seconds. Receiving all email. Thunderbird: 9 secs. Win 10 --still waiting. Says it all really. So far I'm enjoying the journey and I like the "community" that exists amongst Linux users.

[forrestcupp]

I am still kind of in the honeymoon phase of Linux because this is now the longest I've used Linux and I've decided to permanently use Linux instead of Windows. I still keep tabs on Windows versions to learn about how to run those too, but it seems like Microsoft always installs more and more annoying features. And it's also so expensive.

Linux in contrast is such a welcome relief. If I wasn't as much of a hardcore computer user, something as simple as WattOS would be enough. But I do music and photography and illustration so I really like Ubuntu Studio. I also like the support.

Did you ever try out Ardour for multi-track music recording? It's pretty sweet. And there are a lot of good LADSPA effects plugins that work with it and other programs, too.