the f00fy one asked Those of you who use Linux: What was your f…

Ubuntu was my first Linux distribution. I had it on my very first laptop (Lenovo Z50-75), I had a HDD at the time so it was quite slow. Windows wasn't great either.

I tried Linux again on my desktop PC (Dell Optiplex 7010), and I was struggling to play games on it. Eventually I got a GPU, and it made things much better to the point where I could use it every day.

I'm not currently using it at the moment (using Windows 10 LTSC rn), but I will probably install Fedora or Arch Linux :)

David · 8mo

My first linux distro was Ubuntu, if I remember correctly. Back in 2018 or something. Didn't stick for it long and moved to arch, as stupid a decision as that was.

Pyrox · 8mo

my first distro was mint and i loved it lol

i first tried to install it on my laptop, but i had to turn off rst, which meant windows no longer booted, which scared me and made me give up on the idea until i got a pc

on my pc i daily drove it for a week until i (thought it) broke it 🥴

Alex · 9mo

Ubuntu! I found the option in Virtualbox and wondered "Huh what is this other thing?" It was so intriguing to younger me cause it was not windows or Mac.

Zen · 9mo

my first distro was fedora, and i have continued to use fedora since maybe november or december, i've had nothing but positive sentiment for linux, at least as compared to my lifetime of using mac and occasional usage of windows for school stuff.

shroomiePerson · 9mo

Ubuntu, as a live USB, when I was trying to troubleshoot an old ThinkStation that I got for free. I didn't really understand what I was doing, and eventually I concluded that something was wrong with the motherboard, that it just couldn't detect any IDE devices.

As for a first experience using a Linux install on a computer, then that would be elementary OS, first in a VM and then as a dual boot with Windows 7 on tank. I got a ThinkPad knowing that it was considered a good Linux machine, though the two main reasons I got that one are that it was quite cheap on eBay and that a laptop with a stylus sounds rad (fuck touchscreens), so I wanted to try Linux. I chose Elementary because it looked like it had more work on its design than other distros and I thought that could motivate me to use Linux. I ended up switching to using it full time rather quickly and removed the Windows 7 partition. I learnt the basics not by following any "intro to linux" tutorials but just by working through various problems, only really learning the things I needed at a particular time for a particular situation.

I started to truly learn Linux when I got into my last year of computer science classes. The first two years were in a very Windows-oriented school, but that last one had 0% Windows. They made us write an HTTP server in Bash and in Perl, I learnt Python by myself, etc., and switched to Xubuntu while I toyed with Arch Linux on my other computers. Now I just feel like I can't get anything done on Windows because I got far more control on my computer thanks to Linux systems, but I cannot say that anyone should switch to Linux because the desktop experience keeps on getting worse; the huge fragmentation means nothing is ever consistent and understandable by normal people.

~lucidiot · 9mo

The year was 1999, I was using Linux Mandrake 6.5, which I bought in a physical box containing CD-ROMs and a floppy disk and an actual printed user manual.

I remember being frustrated about getting the sound card working, but I had fun because I loved exploring new systems and figuring things out and I was just completely enamored with the idea of open source and free software at the time.

Steve · 9mo

My phone.

Shannon. · 9mo

Mandriva, it was pleasant, if a little confusing. It's pretty intuitive though!

I don't use it as my main OS currently but I wanna remedy that, I just game too much and WINE is a pain in the ass. also I'm out of the loop on distros so idk which one I'd use...prolly arch or smth that I have friends who use so I can crowdsource help x3

mana · 9mo

It was Ubuntu. If I'm not mistaken, version 16.04. It was cool in that it could run Firefox out of the box and do web browsing. But I didn't know how to download software properly, and ended up thinking like it was some sort of unfinished/experimental stuff that was being taken too seriously.

Fast forward to today and my esteemed KDE Ubuntu handles everything I throw at it (except sustained workloads like gaming but that's a firmware support issue)

Arthur · 9mo

Ubuntu. it was... annoying. My teachers did not appreciate it :3

Kio · 9mo

Mobile and laptop. But my phone more.

MOVED · 9mo

My first Linux was Linux Mint. I do work with a couple of Debian boxes and as my desktop OS I do use Ubuntu alongside MacOS.

Kate Matsuda · 9mo

I don't use Linux regularly, but I use it sometimes, for specific things that I can only do on Linux. I have it in WSL and VirtualBox. My first Linux distribution was Red Hat, back in like 1993 or something. I don't remember it much.

I would never consider using Linux as my main operating system. Compared to Windows, it's extremely crude, buggy, non-user-friendly, and lacking in features. And you frequently run into issues just trying to run simple applications or do anything, and resolving each issue takes a lot of research and effort, unless you have elaborate knowledge of the inner workings of the OS, and I'll be damned if I'm going to spend that many hours just studying some arbitrary OS, I'm not that much of a nerd. I Hate Linux. Windows, on the other hand, Just Works™️.

This is why I think people who think Linux is a perfectly suitable desktop OS for the masses, or even think it's better than Windows, are delusional. I mean, I know it's better than Windows in some ways, especially for programmers and as a server, but those are niche use cases, it's not better than Windows overall.

inhahe · 9mo

I don't know

the f00fy one · 20 answers · 9mo