It's time for a poll. How long have you used Linux?

[dcbrown73]

Twenty days more than the last time I answered.

 

[kjm007]

I am a old Linux Git.

 

[Repondeo]

The real question is how long has Linux been using Z1, ENIAC, and other nuclear arsenals. Hmm... Still can't wrap my head around it.

 

[KGIII]

Huh... We're up to 145 votes.

 

[wizardfromoz]

@Repondeo

Note that this is in "General Linux" and not "Off-Topic", so please try to keep it on topic.

If you are not going to bother to vote, please do not make off-topic comments.

Wizard

 

[KGIII]

The poll has surprised me in a number of ways, though being referenced regularly and pinned likely have helped. The results aren't what I expected and the number of votes are higher than I expected. Then again, the poll has been sitting here for quite a while now.

 

[DexTheDog]

An older version without a poll.

 

[KGIII]

And a lot less participation.

Those users in that thread even predate me. Though, I've not been here all that long.

 

[Scott Cooley]

I had to just establish some arbitrary numbers.

Just pick the category to which you belong.

For fun, I've made it so that you can't see the poll results unless you have also voted.

Also for fun, you can not change your vote.

(I may sticky this for a few days. I want to give folks a chance to respond.)

If you need to add a caveat, do so in the thread. Note that this is in "General Linux" and not "Off-Topic", so please try to keep it o

See your above me... What a good remote job...
Your awesome!

Scott

 

[Scott Cooley]

My answer isn't really "right". I used Unix for years. When Linux came out, I played with it a number of times. I was playing with Linux when RedHat was still something you could buy a CD for at Best Buy.

But, I didn't use Linux exclusively until about 2007 or 2008. That's less than 15 years. So, that's what I picked.

A long time ago. Learned that Linux was Free and You have control of it. That's my world. I like that. Now want a Remote Job controlling there World for them. Not the Gov...

 

[Scott Cooley]

Yeah, for simplicity sake I too used the date of when I starting using Linux exclusively. I'd otherwise be in the 15+ category. Instead, I'm in the 10 to 15 category.

Thanks for voting. I looked around to see if there had been a previous poll for this and didn't find anything, so I made one.

Been in it for over that, but not really educated in the system, now I'm trying.

 

[KGIII]

What a good remote job...

In theory, and technically, I'm actually retired.

However, I keep obligating myself to do things for others. What I should be doing is fishing or building a guitar. Instead, I'm doing all sorts of stuff for other people.

 

[Deleted member 128018]

I started using Linux around the start of October 2021 didn't write it down.

 

[KGIII]

LOL Well, you can register your vote pretty easily. You're under 6 months!

 

[guiverc]

I had been retired for medical reasons & spent some time at bible college taking along an old Compaq Portable (80286 with 5.25" floppy) to take notes on. It was about ~1998 so my heavy box was a little dated, but it worked & I couldn't afford to replace it.

A guy at the college (Whitley) suggested I check out ComputerBank who gave out refurbished laptops with GNU/Linux on them (Debian). I went along and was given a much more modern Dell laptop which used 3.5", had a battery, and most importantly didn't weigh a 'half-ton'.

I'd read about GNU/Linux in trade/tech magazines, but had never used it before, and had little to no interest in it (seeing it as a toy created by hobbists). (I'd worked in IT, but in a closed source shop using old big blue boxes). On using this donated dell though; it sure felt like the unix I'd used years ago at university. I still didn't care for the kernel (Linux), but I loved the GNU (GNU's not Unix), so I only touched GNU/Linux distributions (Debian said GNU/Linux back then).

It wasn't until ~2010 before GNU/Linux became my prime OS; it's been that since; and I stopped using only GNU/Linux distributions. It's the only OS I now use on my own boxes.

 

[KGIII]

It's the only OS I now use on my own boxes.

Darned right! There are a number of OS choices, but Linux is what I've come to prefer.

Also, there are a bunch of Aussies here. Stick around long enough (or make a post in the Introductions section of the site) and you'll bump into them.

Anyhow, I really don't think I could be easily convinced to stop using Linux at this point. I look around at the OS landscape and I really only prefer Linux.

 

[wizardfromoz]

@guiverc the beers for likes are from the Aussies.

Wiz

 

[KGIII]

I still didn't care for the kernel (Linux),

I decided to come back and ask a question.

What didn't you like about the kernel at the time?

 

[guiverc]

It wasn't that I disliked the kernel, I just didn't see it as important (to me anyway).

It didn't worry me if I was using GNU/linux (GNU's not Unix) or BSD (an actual unix), they both worked for me, and given my primary OS was OS/2 at the time, I was really just playing with the *nix as it was on the newish-device. (Debian came on the dell; I installed a BSD on another desktop; being on a desktop meant it had a real IBM model M keyboard which is a huge ++). I continued to play/use both for a long time, but was finding GNU/Linux easier to work out (despite it's keyboard; eg. networking, sound, much later on SaMBa etc); which would often cause me to learn enough to subsequently get it working in BSD later. Years later I dropped any play with BSD as GNU/Linux I found much easier.

If you need an answer (dislike & kernel); on that really old Debian, I would have liked to have sound & networking.. but I had a script that would `rmmod` one & `insmod` the other.. but I took that as a limitation of RAM (32MB at that time in the dell debian laptop). Later kernels didn't have that limitation though; but that didn't worry me either; I had my sony walkman (with my self-mixed cassettes for music!)

 

[KGIII]

It wasn't that I disliked the kernel, I just didn't see it as important (to me anyway).

I can relate to that and it makes sense to me. (I do play with BSD once in a while, usually GhostBSD these days.)

Also, you could club someone to death with one of those old M keyboards. There's a bit of a cult following for them today. If you still have it, some collector will take it off your hands. I've heard of good ones going for a few hundred bucks.

I would have liked to have sound & networking.

While I played with Linux early on (and you can note that I don't include that time in my poll answer as I wasn't using Linux exclusively), I don't really have any regrets about not switching to Linux sooner. By the time I seriously used Linux, many of the kinks had been worked out and hardware mostly 'just worked'. One of the other great things was how Ubuntu made it so much easier to install.

Oh, while I'm at it, not only are there a bunch of Aussies here, there are a bunch of older people here. You probably don't need 'yet another site to keep track of', as I see how busy you keep yourself, but there's a pretty good crew of people here.