what caused you to get into Linux?

⁨35⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨mac@programming.dev⁩ to ⁨linux@programming.dev⁩

cross-posted from: lemm.ee/post/16098493

Text from original poster:

What caused you to get into it, are you an evangel and are you obsessed?

source

Comments

Sort:hotnew top

BassTurd@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Microsoft.

source
Grenfur@lemmy.one ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Honestly, the Reddit migration. I switched to Lemmy about 6 months ago. A few of the largest communities at that time were Self Hosting and Privacy related. Those naturally lead me to looking into Linux. From there I started minor self hosting on a Pi. Then, after a rather long walk through the Yongsan Electronics Market in Korea I built my own Homelab, and last week, I moved my primary desktop to Pop_OS. Honestly, It’s been a blast. A few learning curves, but the ability to have near complete control over my setup, and the increased self reliance has been delightful.

source
the_q@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Interest in alternative operating systems. I’m old so I got into it back when Windows 95 had just come out. Mandrake was my first distro, but I was also weirdly interested in BeOS and OS/2 Warp.

source
- jadero@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I guess we’re of similar vintage. I’m using Linux now because BeOS never quite made it to being suitable as a daily driver and Warp ultimately died.
  
  There’s also the fact that I’m retired now. There is little to be gained in doing what anyone else is doing, so I might as well do as I please.
  
  source
  - the_q@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Too bad that lesson isn’t learnable at a younger age.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
nul9o9@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
r/unixporn got me interested, but the FOSS philosophy is what resonated with me.

source
mrkite@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
There was a ton of software sourcecode posted to the comp.sources.unix usenet group that I wanted to check out. The problem is all that software was in shar format, and there was no way to extract those files on msdos. I found Yggdrasil Linux on CD at a local software store and decided to check it out. Been using Linux in one form or another ever since.

source
RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Started using it at a techno-necromancy job I had. Once I realized that you could use it to do things that Windows made needlessly difficult, I was hooked.

source
Declamatie@mander.xyz ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The stereotypical story actually happened to me.

source
nathanjent@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Vendors don’t always update hardware drivers for other versions of those proprietary operating systems. Linux doesn’t depend on vendors directly for updated drivers. Now I can use my old hardware without being stuck on an old OS version.

source
Pantrygheist@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’ve been using Linux on my laptop and work/school computers for a while now, but what made me switch my desktop to Linux was emulator performance. Then I saw the progress Proton had achieved and news of MS putting ads everywhere and I doubled down wiping the windows partition for more disk space.

source
CommandingKangaroo@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The constant OneDrive ads. I could ignore the fact that W11 is essentially spyware, but it kept fucking annoying me with ads and I had enough of it. After programming in Linux, I don’t want to go back to W11. Troubleshooting is so much easier bc the CLI is heavily used. Package managers make my life easier too. Linux is good 👍

source
thisNotMyName@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
My employer trying to force spyware on our work computers (that was only available for Win and Mac)

source
- technom@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This is the best answer so far!
  
  source
maryjayjay@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I started on an AT&T 3b2 running SVR3 before windows existed. It was a natural progression.

source
Shaner@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Well if I remember correctly I was actually first told to use Solaris (Unix) because I knew just a teeny bit of HTML and had done some programming on my TI calculator. I had to use a Sunray workstation and learn ssh and emacs.

My boss took pity on me and bought me a computer (to be paid off with some extra hours). I attempted to install Debian on it, and failed. I tried Ubuntu and it worked (somewhere around 2005ish). It was all downhill from there. I did try some other distributions like arch but by that point I had a laptop and while I technically did get WiFi working and it was fun, I preferred the better out of the box hardware support you got from Ubuntu back in those days.

I’ve stuck when Ubuntu for the most part ever since. Even though the Linux guru at my university called it “Linux for office rats”. I’ve tried some other variants like Mint and while I liked them more eventually I’d have to deal with the fact that the trickier stuff I want to run like CUDA just seems easier to get working. Pre built packages usually target Ubuntu.

I’ve played with alternative window managers like i3 here and there but once again I find it hard to make sure the real basic WiFi/sound/etc works the way I want it to and end up writing my own i3 status scripts or running with some sort of gnome-session thingy.

At the moment by desktop is basically “I don’t care but there are shortcuts for my browser, graphical emacs, and the kitty terminal”.

I’m not an evangelist because let me tell you from experience: your in-laws will not actually thank you for installing a low resource xfce based distribution on their computer. They will be unhappy and you’ll get support calls. They want windows, just free.

But for me personally it’s the most productive environment for what I do. I do not find macOS to be more stable or frankly to be more coherent. I love their font rendering and hidpi support though.

source
obsoulete@kbin.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
My first Linux installation was based on curiosity, which was short lived, because Linux (Mandrake) at the time was too challenging.

I moved permanently onto Linux after I could no longer use my SCSI card on Windows 7. I find Linux a joy to use even though I don't do any programming, and rely on ChatGPT to create scripts.

source
- RustySharp@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  based on curiosity, which was short lived, because Linux (Mandrake) at the time was too challenging.
  
  Story of my life back in high school. Except it was Slackware, from the back of a magazine.
  
  Wasn’t until I took Operating System Design in university that the whole linux/unix philosophy clicked.
  
  source
vikingtons@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Being able to actually own the operating system I use, and being able to research and understand anything pertaining to it if I wanted to. There are too many black boxes in computing as it is.

I don’t really know too much about Linux, I’m still using it fairly mindlessly as a workstation- oriented end user.

I don’t really go out of my way to recommend Fedora (for example) to other people unless they’re already specifically looking into playing around with a distro.

source
assplode@kbin.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I've used Windows since 3.1. I was installing Windows 10 on a laptop a few years ago. The changes they'd made to core functions were so frustrating, I felt like I didn't know how to use Windows anymore.

I figured I might as well try a new OS. It's not like I loved Windows.

I did a dual boot with Windows and Ubuntu. I never logged into Windows again.

source
daredevil@kbin.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I've always been curious, but I was working through The Odin Project earlier this year--it recommended to use Linux. Been using Windows less and less as the year has gone on.

source
SethranKada@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I got sick of windows being an abusive pain in the ass.

source
1984@lemmy.today ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I went full Linux over a decade ago, because it was obvious that Windows would become Spyware shit. It all started with Windows 8.

I don’t want any big tech company inside my computer, thanks.

source
varsock@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
When I was in college, two older classmates whom I respected got into a hilarious argument of why Gnome was awesome and now eats rocks (their views, I had no views). Their elaborate and very specific descriptions of functions and inconveniences drew up a picture of functionality and a e s t h e t i c I had never experienced on windows. So I proceeded to install a distro and take it for a ride

source
hubobes@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Compiz

source
Nithanim@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Servers run on linux and also don’t have licensing bullshit attached. And when my desktop windows installation shit the bed, linux got installed instead.

source
DeltaManiac@hachyderm.io ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
@mac
Windows was too slow on my older laptops. Installing Linux (Ubuntu) on it gave it new life.
source
neonblade@lemmus.org ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Security, Software Updates

source
marco@beehaw.org ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It was free and supposedly better than Windows? 😂

source
coloredgrayscale@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Windows Vista on a laptop with 2gb ram :)

Great suggestion by a fellow IT student to try arch, so I learn the system from the ground up.

source
grossjonas@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Poverty - started by buying old Macs, put linux on it to do usefull stuff, stuck with it … but not the hardware.

source
- christopher@programming.dev ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  My neighbor at the trailer park was a janitor at the university. I built my computer from parts he salvaged from the recycle bin, and put Redhat 5 on it.
  
  source
toasteecup@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I had a laptop that had physical damage and I wanted to see what could happen by switching to Linux.

It didn’t help the laptop but I stuck with the new hotness and here we are a decade later.

source
Steveanonymous@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It’s on my pi hole and my steam deck. While I’m not crazy into it I am thinking of building a pc with it in the not too distant future

source
MajorHavoc@programming.dev ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
No joke! A friend told me it was “the year of the Linux desktop”, because of all the recent breakthroughs in drivers and usability.

I love how this story doesn’t even remotely let you guess what year it was.

source

-> View More Comments