What made you finally run for the Linux hills?

[Iamgeese]

It could be one thing or it could be multiple things.

Bill gates was not it, I have no animosity towards him, I really quite like him. But the product has gone to hell in an handbasket.

One day I woke up to a festival of A.I slop all over every single creative site I have ever frequented, the rage, was phenominal and this may sound silly but the only way I can describe it was a "going to war " level rage that just goes beyond any fight or argument I ever had at school or work, this felt like the biggest "f***you" I have ever experienced in my life. I discovered that microsoft bascially provided a good chunk of the infastructure that enabled this turd storm to be unleashed upon the internet. They came for the internet and then they came for the desktop. Fresh slop served to you right in the start menu and you didnt even need to ask.

Last year I decided to install Teams on my Desktop that I have to use for work (it was on my phone initally) never ever do this. To my absolute horror all I can see is work stuff just every where- I have no work files on my desktop whatso ever. I see the company logo in the start menu, all my bosses and if they were online but absolute worst of all

- The sodding ONEDRIVE NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

There it was looking back at me. I never even used OneDrive. I had something akin to a small panic attack, could my bosses now see what I was doing on my own computer? Was my personal stuff now cacheing in the company OneDrive. Could they now see my job piss taking memes?! My slightly dark humor? God forbid my folder of weeb trash!

My tin foil hat grew and grew and now I think I could build a house out of it (shame I cant really, it would be much cheaper then a normal house).

 

[KGIII]

I used UNIX long before I used Linux. I no longer needed Windows, so I moved to Linux. I did muck about with some BSDs in that transition period, but Linux was getting more development and was the easier choice for a wide variety of software.

 

[Brian Alex]

OneDrive. When MS started billing me $1.99 USD per month to keep my files on their machines and there was no easy way out. Basically holding my files hostage. Then I started hearing about "Recall", screenshots sent to "the cloud", AI assistant "Seeing what you see" able to answer questions about your bank accounts etc. No sir. I will bite the bullet and spend the weeks/months it takes to get Linux to work on my old personal computer. -BA

 

[bob466]

One word...windoze.

 

[kc1di]

I too used Unix early on and when I could not get a program I wanted/needed in the windows world and it was available free of charge on Linux I made the move. Though I still used Windows up to Win 7 I haven't used Window on any of my machines since 2000 or so. Linux has provided all I need. except one app that I used wine to run. But no longer need that app so am totally Windows free and Linux is my only OS. Though I do distro hop quite a bit just to see what the differences are. I did use some of the BSDs for a bit. But Linux is and has been my only steady OS for awhile.

 

[MikeWalsh]

At EOL for Windows XP, I decided, there & then, that I simply didn't want anything more to do with M$. Not that I was especially "anti" Windows for any particular reason.....I was just fed-up to the back teeth with it. I'd used it for almost 30 years since the early days, and.....I felt ready for a change.

Never had any encounters with OneDrive, etc, so can't comment on that.

Googled "Alternative operating systems", found a stack of references & stuff to investigate. Being of an inquisitive nature, I dived in headfirst, consigning Windows to the pages of history literally overnight. Never had any particular ties to ANY Windows software, so I didn't miss anything.

Started with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, the "Trusty Tahr". Ran it for 6 months, got bored with it, scouted around and found 'Puppy'. I liked Puppy's quirky nature immediately, and the friendly community made me feel at home right away.

I've been here ever since.

Like Dave ( @kc1di ), I also run one particular Windows-only app; a photo-editing app, which behaves itself 100% under WINE. Aside from that.....well; I couldn't be more content.


Mike.

 

[Deleted member 197709]

For me it was obtaining a bunch of red hat floppies from my dads friend. Dad's old computer kinna died and I asked for it. He said sure.. it's yours. I didn't even know what Linux was at the time. I just thought Red Hat was a cool name, and the logo was cool. Naive and clueless at it's best!

I did revive Dad's old computer with redhat, and then sometime afterwards I learned there was a thing called the internet. All I wanted to do was fiddle with it after football practice and see if I could play chess on a computer. Off to the races I went.

 

[kc1di]

For me it was obtaining a bunch of red hat floppies from my dads friend. Dad's old computer kinna died and I asked for it. He said sure.. it's yours. I didn't even know what Linux was at the time. I just thought Red Hat was a cool name, and the logo was cool. Naive and clueless at it's best!

I did revive Dad's old computer with redhat, and then sometime afterwards I learned there was a thing called the internet. Off to the races I went.

I remember those days of floppies. My first distro was slackware came on 15 or so floppy discs. I then purchased a set of Read Hat disc from our local office supply store here. and stayed with Redhat until the it split into Redhat Eterprize and Fedora. Then moved on to Mandrak I think it was and have used many different distros since. The experience has been mostly good and have been able to help others along the way. settled on Mint many years ago now. But still try out many distros also.
Favorite De is KDE, Cinnamon is a close second used XFCE for many years also.

 

[Deleted member 197709]

I remember those days of floppies. My first distro was slackware came on 15 or so floppy discs. I then purchased a set of Read Hat disc from our local office supply store here. and stayed with Redhat until the it split into Redhat Eterprize and Fedora. Then moved on to Mandrak I think it was and have used many different distros since. The experience has been mostly good and have been able to help others along the way. settled on Mint many years ago now. But still try out many distros also.
Favorite De is KDE, Cinnamon is a close second used XFCE for many years also.

Wow!! So similar!! When dads old computer died with Red Hat on it, I eventually got my own and went with Mandrake... Then Debian... Gentoo, Arch when it first arrived, BSD, some others, then decided I liked Debian best. Ubuntu was just me not having time, an wanting something maintenance free. It is solid, but wow so full junk these days. Instead of just getting rid of it, I decided to play and see if it would survive me torturing it. I'll end up back with Debian when I'm done with it. I can't keep up with the gazillion distro's out there anymore. Ugh. ... I do love KDE 3x's as Trinity. It's underrated and runs versions of qt without issue, as well as gtk versions. Who ever revived it is sooo cool! and Fluxbox still maintained I suppose I'm nostalgic to some degree.

 

[MzQ1NjExN2]

For me it started with Ubuntu. It was free and looked interesting but it wasn't until more than a decade later after I started playing around with Raspberry Pi's that I made the switch. I liked their PC distro. It was simple and never crashed. Later I realized it was basically Debian. That led me to Debian and the rest is history.

Currently I'm using MX Linux XFCE and I've been using MX Linux KDE on my casual machines. Both are great.

 

[MzQ1NjExN2]

Who ever revived it is sooo cool! and Fluxbox still maintained I suppose I'm nostalgic to some degree.

MX has an official flavor of Fluxbox. Its Debian based. FYI.

 

[Deleted member 197709]

MX has an official flavor of Fluxbox. Its Debian based. FYI.

I almost went with MX when I had time to play on linux again. I had Ubuntu 14 i think it was, and it ran on my system for years way past being supported. I just didn't have time for home computer for like a decade. I just went with 24.04 out of curiosity, mostly as I was rather behind in Linux stuffs.I was impressed by the older ubuntu keeping on keeping on, despite my neglecting it for years. haha.

 

[theLegionWithin]

about a year before win10 went end of life I switched over - at work, we were already using win11 and I'm fine with using it/fixing it if I get paid to do it but I dont like win11 and the bloat it's turned into well enough to use it in my personal life. the vast majority of what I use these days is browser based so I've seen very little change. linux is just a better OS, hands down.

 

[Deleted member 197709]

about a year before win10 went end of life I switched over - at work, we were already using win11

I think I played with Win 95 for a short time, before wiping it out. My work was always using Unix systems so I kinna kept up. I still today fix problems on family and friends Windows installs. Each time I'm like .. Gawd guys, you should let me put Linux on this thing!!

Dad was a Windows guy. He couldn't keep up anymore when I cared for him, and I was always fixing his system glitches for him. We always had fun teasing each other with windows vs Linux stuffs.

 

[Brickwizard]

Run--RUN , I don't do run, as a former beta tester I trialled W200 and W millennium and thought they were a large dose of elephants exhausts [a big heap of S****] so I ran XP IMO the last decent Windows system, in parallel to this I had been playing with Linux since the mid 90's finally going 99.999% Linux over 20 years ago,
Why only 99.99%, well I have one drive which has a version of w11 on it which gets booted twice a year to update my sat nav [manufacturer only allows W10.11 or Mac to run the updates, even VB/VM won't work]

 

[Deleted member 197709]

I have to say... Keeping Dad happy with Windows and his Apple stuff for over a decade, while being a Linux guy, even when I didn't have time for Linux at the time, I can so see the difference between proprietary and Open. It is frustrating to me, as it all has to do with Bucks! .... Pay for this and that to stay safe and secure kinda thing, or pay for this software and that software. It's all a greed game when you look at it from under the hood on a sideline, knowing what Linux and Open is.

Dad went through so many computers that would just seemingly fail, getting a brand new shiny one all up to date. It was usually never because the hardware failed. Widows is designed to fizzle from bloat alone with an average user not wanting to, or just knowledgeable to wipe out the system and reinstall fresh. I believe that's by design. I'll never fall on that train! It's a waste of time and money. Especially for computer users who don't want to tinker, but just have a computer that works hassle free. Like a catch 22 kinda thing.

This is just my personal insight and of course not meant to diss any one operating system. It's just a shame a proprietary system causes so many to entice people to buy subscriptions to avoid so much malware, virus, protection apps, when many of those vary apps are malware and spyware themselves underneath. It's unsettling to learn about!

Is it any wonder Linux is becoming so popular these days?
I think so many people are waking up.

Computers are expensive enough by themselves, and usually come with a version of Windows or Mac begging you to subscribe for this and that, to get you to poor more money into the system. Yep, ways around it, but you get the feeling your missing out on this and that, without biting their hooks. With Linux Available, It a way to escape, and the learning curve doesn't really cost you anything but research.

 

[MikeWalsh]

I had Ubuntu 14 i think it was, and it ran on my system for years way past being supported

I still regularly run Puppy's "take" on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, the "Trusty Tahr". I started with "Trusty" anyway, some 12 years ago.....and "Tahrpup" has always been my favourite Pup by a long chalk. Mind you, it's super-customized by now, runs a far newer kernel AND a much more recent glibc, along with newer ca-certs, dbus, SSL, etc, etc.

I've usually got a couple of the newest Puppies on the system, under 'test'......but at heart I'm a "retro-freak", and love playing around with older software to see what it's still capable of. What can I say?


Mike.

 

[Deleted member 197709]

I still regularly run Puppy's "take" on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, the "Trusty Tahr". I started with "Trusty" anyway, some 12 years ago.....and "Tahrpup" has always been my favourite Pup by a long chalk. Mind you, it's super-customized by now, runs a far newer kernel AND a much more recent glibc, along with newer ca-certs, dbus, SSL, etc, etc.

I've usually got a couple of the newest Puppies on the system, under 'test'......but at heart I'm a "retro-freak", and love playing around with older software to see what it's still capable of. What can I say?


Mike.

I just fell too far behind and the older stuff makes me feel comfortable. I remember a puppy CD I used as a rescue bootable disk. I can't remember what version it was, but I really liked it alot. I was running Arch Linux at the time and that CD came in handy so often. Arch Linux was new then, and had lots unstableness about it.

 

[Rocketing-warp9]

I used to tamper with Linux mint x32 bit for a while, and my main Surface was held back with Rocket League. I have dabbled with Linux before for quite a while-but never caught on full-heartedly until after I blew up a W11 Reinstall and got a Console. So I just cannon-balled it, First with Mint and now with Kubuntu 25.10. Been slowly converting my "Fleet" to dual-boots with retro versions of Win/MOS and fresh installs.

I've usually got a couple of the newest Puppies on the system, under 'test'......but at heart I'm a "retro-freak", and love playing around with older software to see what it's still capable of. What can I say?

Yep! I do something similar with different systems. Back in about 23' I cannon-balled Ubuntu "Hearty Heroin" on a old dell.. Still play around with Pre-10 versions of win every once in a while.. Even tried to dual-boot Vista and Warty Warthog (That Did not end well). Shockingly, most systems 10+ years old still works online, albeit not completely. Still, Nice

 

[Iamgeese]

For me it started with Ubuntu. It was free and looked interesting but it wasn't until more than a decade later after I started playing around with Raspberry Pi's that I made the switch. I liked their PC distro. It was simple and never crashed. Later I realized it was basically Debian. That led me to Debian and the rest is history.

Currently I'm using MX Linux XFCE and I've been using MX Linux KDE on my casual machines. Both are great.

its the Raspberry Pi that is where I learned about Linux in 2020.