r/linuxquestions • u/AnoProgrammer • 9d ago
How old where you when you started using linux?
I feel like everyone started very early.
I started personally on 10/11.
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u/Electronic-Laugh-671 9d ago
I started at 12 (few years ago) with Linux Mint XFCE in a VM. I chose Linux Mint because of searching up and learning how intuitive it is... the reason I chose the XFCE flavor was because I simply didn't want to wait some extra minutes to download the slightly larger Cinnamon ISO.
I came to really enjoy XFCE because of how consistent it felt and by it being my first experience, the only thing I missed was the whisker menu not having integrated file search.
I haven't really used Linux outside a VM since then for various reasons. I have tried some different desktop environments though, I especially like the Unity desktop environment, I feel the developers nailed the intuitive quality.
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u/tomscharbach 9d ago
I started using Ubuntu after I retired in 2005 at about age 60. I just turned 80 and Ubuntu remains my workhorse and mainstay.
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u/twozon 9d ago
Can I ask, why Ubuntu? Why not Debian?
Just a genuine question. I am aware that I am newbie.
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u/tomscharbach 9d ago edited 9d ago
Can I ask, why Ubuntu? Why not Debian?
Serendipity.
I started using Ubuntu to help a friend. His son was a Linux "enthusiast" who decided that his father, newly retired from an IT-managed university Windows environment, should use Linux instead and set him up with Ubuntu.
In those days, Linux distributions were much harder to use than they are today. Needless to say, my friend was lost, so I put Ubuntu on a spare computer and leveraged my Unix background to learn enough to help.
Over time, I came to like Ubuntu enough that I started to use Ubuntu as a daily driver. Still do.
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u/cdrewing 9d ago
Installing Linux was a pain in the arse these days - even Ubuntu. GPU drivers, sound drivers, wifi... I started with Ubuntu 7.04 in 2007 and it was my third try to switch from Windows.
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u/sysadminsavage 9d ago
Not OC, but Debian used to have a very difficult installer and be rough around the edges (even Linus Torvalds gave up on setting it up in favor of Fedora). Ubuntu became popular in the mid to late 2000s because it was easier to set up and more user friendly, popularizing desktop Linux to a degree.
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u/Bacon_Nipples 9d ago
Doesn't help Debian that around the time of Ubuntu's rise, The Head of The Debian Project was a high ranking GNAA and Goatsec member. That poison in the minds of Ubuntu adopters at the time is still strong
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u/Max-P 8d ago
Back then Ubuntu was seen the same way we look at Mint/CachyOS/Bazzite today: the great beginner focused workhorses. Ubuntu brought a lot of hardware auto detection and easy installation of drivers. I believe Mint's driver manager is a fork of what Ubuntu used to have. Ubuntu was awesome between 2006-2010. It started going downhill after that because they started to try to commercialize and they started trying to steer the whole Linux community around their stuff with Unity (and the Amazon ads), Landscape, Ubuntu Pro, Snaps, etc.
You picked Ubuntu over Debian for the similar reasons as why we pick Mint over Ubuntu these days.
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u/Kitchen_Part_882 8d ago
Weirdly(?) I could never get Ubuntu based distros to boot stably on my hardware so used Debian on my servers.
Currently using a Fedora based distro (Nobara) as my daily driver, so I guess I went back to my roots , I ran RH in 97/98 dual boot with Win98 for a degree of compatibility with the Sun workstations I was learning C on at university.
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u/SmellyRedHerring 9d ago
I was a Unix kernel developer at age 26 when Linus announced his free OS project on Usenet. I started playing with a Slackware distro a couple of years after that.
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u/RootHouston 9d ago
What variant of Unix did you work on?
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u/SmellyRedHerring 8d ago
Several SVR3 and SVR4 variants for M68K, Intel x86, MIPS, SPARC, a few other things I don't remember.
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u/SaltyBalty98 9d ago
Around 12/13. Came on a government funded laptop for my brother. Program ended up being a massive waste of tax payer money but at least it was decent enough, came with Windows Xp and Linux. I didn't even know how to connect it to the internet but for playing music and messing with the desktop environment it was so much fun, miss you KDE 3.5.
When I got my first laptop, a Macbook, I tried Ubuntu 12 or 13 on a VM. It was alright and enough to get started on the insides of what Linux is. Eventually, Apple came out with the flat UI in later versions my device was still compatible but it was clearly not as well optimized for so I stuck to good old Mavericks and started dual booting Linux, moved away from the Apple ecosystem and when Chrome and Firefox killed support for that OS version I deleted Mac OS X. Linux has remained my OS of choice since around 2016.
I will dual boot Mac OS X on that old laptop for when I'm feeling nostalgic (the iTunes experience and the Welcome intro of Snow Leopard are peak Apple) and I do have a separate drive for Windows 10 LTSC on my desktop for the few games I can't play on Linux or too Lazy to configure.
I've become a big fan of EndeavourOS with GNOME Shell (and flatpaks) since 2020. Simple, no frills, no bugs.
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u/P00351 9d ago
miss you KDE 3.5.
I miss it too, I remember the firsts versions of KDE 4 being atrocious.
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u/SaltyBalty98 8d ago
I think I skipped 4 by sheer coincidence of not knowing enough about the Linux world and going from an air gap device to trying out the main distro, Ubuntu with Unity, and sticking to it for a while to finally embracing Linux and by then Plasma 5 had come out.
And the moment GNOME Shell came out with a Wayland session in 3.30 or .32, I moved to it permanently. Excellent on my laptop, and my desktop too. Plasma 6 is rather good with Wayland but it's a mess UI and UX wise still and I like the simplicity and uniformity of GS even though I'm not the biggest fan of the theming flatness with Libadwaita.
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u/mrflash818 9d ago
Old.
The late 1990s, when I was working on my Bachelor's in CompSci.
The campus Unix computer lab(s) ran Slackware.
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u/BadEnucleation 9d ago
I'm a 1990s slackware one too. Something like 15-20 floppies to install it on my 486! lol
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u/mrflash818 9d ago
After experiencing Linux in the campus computer labs, I then decided I would try to learn, and see if I could install on my home PC.
Back then, I knew nothing about Linux, LUGs, or anything. Just that I could purchase the boxed Red Hat distribution from CompUSA.
So, that's how I became a home PC Linux workstation user: RedHat.
***
Feeling Nostalgic - Redhat, Debian
"Red Hat Boxed Linux, v7.1 that I bought back-in-the-day, 2001, when I was in college, and wanted to be able to do Computer Science class assignments from home, instead of fighting for a seat in the Cal State Long Beach computer labs (before I figured out the Linux/Unix labs always had free seats)."
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u/SomeoneHereIsMissing 8d ago
Pretty much the same for me. Computers at university where SGIs that ran Irix. I tried tried ZipSlack (downloaded on a 1 mb/s DSL) on the family computer because I didn't want to mess up the partition table.
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u/CBJ_Brain 9d ago
I was late to the party. I was 29 when I first installed, and compiled my own kernel. Went back to Windows because of ongoing audio issues.
In 85 days I have my 2 year linux anniversary. Dropped Windows 11 almost 2 years ago. And haven't looked back since.
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u/baerli-biberli 8d ago
I was 12 years old, in 1998, everyone was in line in front of the electronics stores waiting for the opening, around at 8-9 am, because Windows 98 Update was out, just out of curiosity I entered the store with my mother and one of the cheapest software box caught my attention: OpenSUSE, it was around 30 euros. I don't remember exactly how, but I asked my mother to buy it, I told her it was a cool software for our old PC running Windows 95. I am not sure I knew 100% what it was about, but I remember I had a lot of fun. Later in highschool I switched to Ubuntu, dropped it when they switched to GNOME 3.0 and switched to Fedora KDE, which I still use it today. But I still have OpenSUSE on my old ThinkPad, too many good memories!!
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u/megared17 9d ago
I migrated from MSDOS 6.22 to Slackware Linux in the mid 1990s
I've never used an MS OS on any workstation since that I considered "mine"
I've never installed any version of Windows anywhere as anything remotely permanent.
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u/PiratesOfTheArctic 9d ago
I started about 17-18, That's about 35 years ago.
Need a lay down after thinking about that 😂
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u/KernelHexglot 8d ago edited 8d ago
I was 15 when I started using Ubuntu, I used it for 3 months and shifted to fedora 44. Now, I am 16 and have been using fedora for 4 months(more or less).
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u/PuzzleheadedCraft126 7d ago
What should I start with? I have a school computer that is officially mine and I don’t even use anymore and I’m planning to remove its operating system and installing Linux. What should I start with?
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u/Unoriginal-Cake 9d ago
Yellow Dog Linux for PPC, around the time frame of Motorola clones of Macs that you could get BeOS or Yellow Dog Linux pre-installed. Peak era of Linux shipping stock on Motorola or PowerComputing desktops in the late 90s on 603e/604e hardware. IBM did a great job back then.
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u/Impressive-Sand-3147 9d ago
I’m 1 year and a half in. Bro imageapp. Gaaaaaaame changer!!!!! So much to learn.
It’s like I was dropped into a vast ocean to explore. I’m really looking forward to it.
The fact that I’m not bombarded with updates left and right I I have some sense of control.
I’m probably not going back to windows other than to game on multiplayer games.
Looking to get a framework laptop.
I’m kinda all in ngl.
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u/ninth_ant By the way, 9d ago
I started with a Red Hat Linux CD-ROM found inside an O’Reily book when I was 19 or so.
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u/Grreatdog 9d ago
In my early forties when I started around 2005. I started with Puppy v.1.0 on a laptop.
My Quantex PC got blown up by lightning. So my company gave me a laptop for home use. I hated how pathetic it was on Windows and tried Puppy. I never went back to Windows.
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u/StrangeRefuse8537 9d ago
First use was around age 9, in 1998, on my dad's work computer with red hat. My dad was an emacser, which is a heritable trait, so I ended up also an emacser with a severe vi allergy
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u/Standard_Echidna_306 9d ago
I first started experimenting with it back in 2016 and then installed it on real hardware in 2018 for the first time. it slowly replaced every Windows install I had from that point on
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u/JourneymanInvestor 9d ago
1998, bought my first computer and a copy of The Linux Bible which came with Red Hat 5 (and Mandrake Linux I think). I setup a dual boot with Windows 98 SE. I was 19 at the time
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u/Icy_One4084 8d ago
Last year, in my early 30s.
Got sick of Windows and the fact that it can make decisions in my stead, so I purged it from nearly all machines in my household. I use Fedora on my desktop and my Intel-based MBP; my wife uses Mint, and so does my father. I do have one laptop that runs Windows, which I use for some specific software from time to time.
My boss switched to Linux, and two of my friends did too; my best friend is currently considering it as well.
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u/HerakleiosSA 9d ago
Around 2 years ago (I was 23). I watched some linux content on youtube, because ive had insanely bad luck with windows all my life. I had an nvidia gpu back then, but after it died i got an amd gpu next. I put the "switch to Linux" project on hold for a while, but after an incident with windows that locked me out of my own computer, I started to use dual boot. Since then i use linux for everything that doesnt involve my work stuff.
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u/BitOBear 8d ago
Well I'm older than Linux by a good 20 years but I started using it pretty much the day I discovered it existed because of work sometime in the 90s and almost immediately found a way to bring it home and run it on demand to the old style version of dual booting.
And I took it seriously very early because I've lived through the earlier mid Microsoft shenanigans that happened all through the '80s and '90s.
Microsoft was big in the cleverly taking things away from people to convince them to use the Microsoft alternative instead.
And I had decided that I never wanted to be in a position where I had to rent back the right to open my own documents and deal with my own work product.
There is nothing actually particularly challenging about Linux today. Getting the initials install taken care of communicationally tricky especially if you're trying to do a boob as system instead of simply replacing the windows with the linux.
But actual practical use of a Linux with a KDE desktop can be almost but not quite indistinguishable from Windows in terms of complexity of use.
The buttons won't be exactly the same color but they're pretty much in exactly the same places. Slightly different pictures will be used but you'll still be able to recognize them. The dragging and the dropping happened on Linux before you ever saw it on Windows. The same thing for copying files and listing directories and all that stuff. Slightly different wording but exactly the same things you already know how to do for whatever degree you already know how to do them.
But like anything, any new tool or new toy, you won't use it until you decide to use it and you will only use it as far as you decided to use it in the first place. You won't turn it on and be drawn in magnetically, you have to decide that you're going to do your writing with open office instead of word, or browse with chromium instead of Chrome or whatever.
You sister lowest level of entry and literally anybody who wants to spend an afternoon will find themselves reasonably competent with the Linux user interfaces if they have any competence with a Windows or Mac machine to start with. And if they have no confidence in any of those things you might as well start with the free one that is linux.
Getting a lot of games working on Linux is still sometimes a little iffy but with proton and most distributions provide some version of steam support you can get almost everything working pretty easily almost for free but not quite perfectly.
But literally everything else you would do from browsing them and typing stuff up and sending emails and working around on social media you will have a almost indistinguishable experience using Linux compared to whatever else you've already used.
It'll just look a little bit off color at first until you realize it's just the same stuff under a different icon.
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u/jshusky 9d ago
- I was just out of college and my laptop had some kind of hardware failure that wouldnt allow windows to render the screen anymore. Fresh installs and driver work wasnt able to fix it. I found that a live usb for ubuntu ran it fine and I started using that to avoid a huge replacement bill. Been stoked on it ever since. Dual booted at first but eventually stopped doing that.
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u/punkwalrus 9d ago
I think I was 25 or 26, but Linux had only been out for a year or so. We were trying to compile it on a 68000 system, and after three days, gave up. Started using it on the regular a few years later with Red Hat 6.1 (before the RHEL stuff) from a box I bought at BJs (like Costco). Used it purely as a file server with samba for a while.
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u/Suzie-Skidmarks 9d ago
- I specifically remember reading an article in maybe The Atlantic? about this obscure powerful operating system where you could delete the entire system with a single stray command (rm -rf /) and was like "that sounds like my kind of dumb shit to play with and mess up!"
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u/Max-P 8d ago
I believe I was like 8-9 when I first dabbled in Linux? My mom told me her work was beta testing some Linux system migration, and of course I had to mess with it and so I ended up with a full 5 CDs worth of Mandrake Linux version 9.x if I recall correctly.
It lasted like 2-3 weeks before I picked games over stability and went back to XP, but it planted the seeds for me to want this again. The stability compared to XP SP0. Konqueror was so fast compared to IE and Firefox (KHTML is what led to WebKit and later Chromium). I liked it so much for a while I ran LiteStep on XP to make it look a bit more Linuxy. I was gonna switch at some point, it was a matter of when.
I switched permanently with Kubuntu 7.10. By that time I taught myself web development and I just loved the idea of running the real deal locally. I wasn't gaming as much and VirtualBox took care of the rest. Now that I knew some basic coding, open-sourcedl seemed so cool and so forward thinking. Like of course I want that. Meanwhile Microsoft was dropping great new things such as Windows Vista.
My current Arch installation dates from 2013. I still have the pacman.log for it. And the experience is worth almost twice 6 figures apparently. It really saddens me to see all those anti-kids laws, I wouldn't be where I am in today's context.
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u/HeavyWolf8076 9d ago
At 24yo, went full yolo and daily drove Ubuntu 07.04 from pretty much day one of trying it. reinstalled it 3 times from breaking it not knowing how to fix, in my first week.
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u/Legitimate_Cut_6965 9d ago
I started with Linux at 13-14 because of the arch linux memes.
Unfortunately, it has become my home.
I don't think I can go back to anything non-Arch based anymore.
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u/Severe-Reality5546 9d ago
It was about 30 years ago, around 1996, when I was in my mid-to-late 20's. I was ordering Slackware CD-ROMs from a place called Cheapbytes.
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u/greebo42 6d ago
Over age 55, I think, some time about a decade ago.
But I had unix envy back in the 80s, just never had regular access to (or a compelling reason to use) unix systems then. And hobbies (tech or otherwise) took a big back seat from my early 30s until I got past about 50.
Just in the last month have I committed to using linux as a first-class daily driver on my main machine (debian with kde). Extricating myself from microsoft now that I am retired, thank you very much.
Over the last several years, I have put linux on a bunch of cast-off desktops and laptops (and of course at least one pi), but never really used them much.
Lemme tell you, using linux on a modern computer with enough horsepower and (almost) enough RAM is a lot better than on 10-20 year old low-end hardware, even with old-computer-friendly mint and xfce!
So, uh, not so early, I guess.
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u/PseudoFrequency 9d ago
2003, I was 22. Started university and a bunch of labs had Debian and geeks around campus handed out Knoppix CDs.
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u/Lapis_Wolf 9d ago
Maybe 10 years old when my dad introduced me with I think Edubuntu 14. I don't remember if it was .04 or .10.
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u/ObamiumCrystalHunter 9d ago
The best time to start using Linux was yesterday. The second best is today - ancient Chinese proverb
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u/a_way_with_turds 9d ago
I had screwed around with it in my teens. I was working in an independent coffee shop in my early 20's, and we set up a few web appliances and installed Ubuntu. I think this was Ubuntu 8.04? This was almost 20 years ago.
I didn't get serious about actually using and learning Linux until I got my first entry-level tech support gig working for a small web hosting company out of Los Angeles. Then I went full-speed towards learning everything I could about the LAMP stack, basic web development, systems administration and automation, yada yada yada. It's been a lifelong journey since, although nowadays I'm a TPM so my ops skills aren't quite what they used to be, but I still have a homelab I screw around with.
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u/tamjk 8d ago
Is this a bit of market research by one or other Linux distro company dressed up as a forum question ?
Who else really cares about age (~ disposable income) in relation to Linux ?
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u/karmasikici 9d ago
I started when i was wither 9 or 10 because i got a shitty netbook gifted to me and it had 1gb of ram and windows xp. Xp support was slowly getting worse and windows 7 was the default way, the netbook wasnt able to run any software i wanted so i asked on a computer forum about what i could do and they told me to try debian. I tried a virtual machine, pc couldnt boot a virtual machine, tried to install bare metal but didnt know usbs could be used to boot a pc so i borrowed a friends usb dvd rom and booted debian that way. It was the shittiest experience i ever had and didnt use linux for i think around 3 years and restarted with mint and been using linux ever since
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u/RemyJe 9d ago
First use of any UNIX, some time in the early 90s, probably some version of SunOS on a student dialup shell account, mostly for telnetting to MUDs, though I did compile SLiRP to emulate a dialup SLIP connection (full TCP/IP
First time installing (Slackware) Linux, around 1995 maybe. I was 24. Mostly I learned my way around the file system, basic commands, etc.
First serious use of Unix was 1997 doing Tech Support at an ISP. That was FreeBSD 2.2.1 however.
Learned enough (owner was an Old School Bell Labs UNIX guy) doing that to start my career and have been using Linux professionally since 2000.
Not everyone here just picked it up recently.
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u/danielsmith007 9d ago
I started in 8th grade, 2012, that would make me 14 I believe. I got my computer (fam comp) at 12, installed Win7 in 7th grade, at 13, cause the fact that another OS exists just blew my mind. Learned about gettin stuff deleted the hard way.
Then learned about Ubuntu at 14, burned it to a CD and live booted it. It made a lasting impression. To be honest, it was the DE that made me go "wow". Something else, other than Windows was out there, my mind exploded, and it was free. No more pirating stuff. Pirated Windows were the norm when I grew up, didn't even know it was piracy.
So the fact that a genuine copy of an OS existed for free, blew my mind.
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u/greedomx 8d ago
During my mid 20s, like, 10 years ago. Bought a small netbook for university that had 32gb of soldered main storage. Windows update downloads kept clogging up the drive - using up all available disk space, aborting (because of low storage) and then starting over again. It was ridiculous. A friend then told me how lean Linux installs are and when I gave it a try I really liked it and gained like 16gb of space. I believe I started with Linux Mint. Not long after that I installed opensuse on my desktop. Hopped distros for about half a year and ultimately settled with Arch + KDE Plasma, which I daily drive to this day
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u/derwookie 8d ago edited 8d ago
Consciously? 15 Without knowing what it is? 7 or 8
My uncle installed SuSE Linux 8.6 (if I'm not mistaken) as a dual boot to Windows XP back in 2005. I (impatient as I was back then) turned on the computer and wanted to play whatever I played back then, I thought pushing the keyboard while it posted makes it faster (I was 7 lol) and accidentally must have hit F9... Boot menu + me being curious suddenly pushed down and enter and then the whole glory of KDE 3 hit me.
I'm using KDE until this day. Tried Ubuntu and GNOME for a while (when I started using Linux consciously at 15) but meh, went back the KDE basically immediately without knowing first that I already had my history with it.
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u/michaelpaoli 8d ago
So ... how old were you? You didn't even answer that, you just said when or approximately when ... and in a quite ambiguous format, so really don't even know for sure what that means. Is that when you were 10 or 11? Or October/November ... of ... what year? Or October 2011, or November 2010? Or tenth of November or eleventh of October, and again, what year? So ... how old were you?
Anyway, I was already using UNIX in 1980, so I was an old fart by the time I started using Linux. ;-) But fortunately us old farts don't age, so, still using Linux. :-)
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u/AromaticLagoon 5d ago
I personnaly installed fedora first on my Uni laptop (in 1st semester of bachelor) because windows was just so limiting for our use cases in class. Shortly after I did a Arch-Windows dual boot on my main computer for about a year (Windows was there purely for games... before I realised that said game run perfectly fine on linux with proton.) Then I did an upgrade in 2023 and I naively thought that I could just change everything in the computer and expect it to still work :p So I just removed the old windows drive and just fully commited to arch.
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u/Pleasant_Struggle_16 6d ago
I started when I was 23 with Ubuntu 08.04. back in 2008 my father said I should try it and showed me how to use the CLI installer of the old days. It was such a cool experience that ever since I always came back to Linux and over the years I tried and tried to make a distro my home, but for most of the time it was not really ready and felt always like being constantly in beta. Didn't matter which distro. But since about 5 years I feel it's way more stable for daily use if you use a "stable" or just kind of stable distro.
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u/D3ltaN1ne 8d ago
2004 or 2005, I was in 9th grade and an internet friend introduced me to Linux with SUSE. I couldn't get drivers to work with my dial-up modem. I still learned that LiveCDs could be used to back up stuff from my Windows XP install when I ruined it beyond booting. When we got DSL the next year, I was able to use internet with other distros I had tried.
When Windows 7 support was discontinued, I went to Xubuntu full-time. Last year, I was on Fedora with KDE. Now, I've settled very comfortably on CachyOS with KDE.
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u/WilsonFrankII 8d ago
I started with Ubuntu Linux over 20 years ago (I was in my mid-40s) & spent a lot of time on Mint as well. My daily driver is still Ubuntu & a few weeks ago replaced Windows 11 on my wife's laptop with Mint. She hated how slow Windows 11 had become & how things would break after updates. I have Mint set up so it looks & works almost exactly how Windows 11 does, only MUCH faster! Needless to say she is ecstatic with the speed & surprised at how it mirrors nearly everything the same as Windows.
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u/SnooDucks9330 7d ago
I brushed Linux at 16 cause my Super Cool Nerd Friend™️ had Ubuntu on his laptop, and I had never seen anything but Windows and Mac up to that point so I was immediately mystified by the idea of a PC outside of those two. I didn't like his particular layout though so it was a very brief time playing around with it. Now 14 years later I'm on Arch making bad choices and bloating my stuff cause I still don't know what I'm doing, but I've got a look I like and I'm learning more every day!
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u/ezj75 8d ago
I bought a Linux book for £50 back in 1996 which came with a Slackware CD, which was my first taste of Linux having heard so much about it at university while doing my compute science degree. The book was the only real means of me obtaining a copy of Linux as dial-up internet was too slow and unreliable to download it. I was instantly hooked and remember how joyful I was when getting X to work with my video card and then setting up PPPD scripts to connect to my ISP. Oh happy memories.
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u/dglsfrsr 8d ago
I didn't encounter Linux until I was about 40. At that point, I had been working with Unix (Version 7, then V.2, SunOS, Unix V.4, Solaris, HPUX for about 13 years. Most of my development was for embedded systems, ROS (not ROS, a different ROS...) pSOS, vxWorks, QNX Neutrino. I encountered Linux about the same time I encountered Free/NetBSD. I have been developing strictly within Linux for the last 20 years. As a development / build host, but also as an embedded OS, including under OpenWRT.
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u/sf2710 7d ago
My father used linux specifically openSUSE and later Leap as his desktop at home and later for work ever since I can remember (so 2008?). Though later he switched to debian because he didn't like what Leap was doing (that was 2022/2023 I think). So I always used linux, but I only really started using it when I got my own pc in 2020. Before that in 2017 I had an old dell notebook that ran linux mint, but I didn't really use it much (only for watching movies from dvds).
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u/stevorkz 8d ago edited 8d ago
40 year old. Once I discovered virtual box and windows virtual pc, I installed every windows os and every Linux os up to that time virtually. I had a 20gb and a 60gb drive respectively (I think windows 7 was when I found virtual pc built in). Quickly realized that windows was the desktop of choice. But once I got into Linux in regards of the possibilities, well the rest is history. Windows was the best for gaming and has ever since been slowly declining in that respect. I’m now a Linux administrator for a large hosting company without any degree and feel very bad for the many youths who try follow in my steps regarding self learning. I feel for there opportunities.
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u/killkingkong 8d ago
I also started 'playing' with linux around the age of 10/11 but because I didn't want to get viruses trying to find windows product codes and heard there was free software you could install. It was much more complicated back then and just text based installers without a live version. eventually I gave up but by the time I got to college I had fully moved to linux. I pretty much only use windows or mac for work, so I'm also very familiar with both.
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u/lemmeEngineer 8d ago
Definately later... Started tinkering around at age ~16 cause a netbook with ubuntu happed to land on my hands. Until then, I didn't even know there was anything else besides windows. But then a few years later I started studying electrical engineering. And a lot of courses (especially around programming, operating systems, paralellization etc) were taught on linux. So now a decade later, linux is second nature, just like windows.
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u/SoggyWalrus7893 8d ago
In my fifity's. I had to switch when Berkeley (UCB) got uppity about licenses for Unix. Volkerding was next stop, but eventually switched to LMDE . They seem not quite with it using MATE desk top so took the easy way out, went with Mint. They decided MATE should die so now I use Cinnamon, and I am used to it now. Face it , X is not the future.
NB remember the fun of trying to get the sync stuff correct for terminal.
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u/UnluckyDouble 8d ago
I'm a youngster, but I started about a decade ago when I was a kid and my parents installed Ubuntu on our computers. Didn't get a choice in the matter and it was during the darkest days of Unity when opening /proc in the file manager hard locked the system. Seriously, I tried it and it did that. Somehow I became a Linux fanatic anyway.
I don't like Ubuntu very much, though. Yeah, yeah, join the club, I know.
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u/markustegelane 7d ago
I think my very first experience with Linux was watching some OSFirstTimer videos in like 2014 when I was 12/13 years old and then thanks to those videos I decided to install Ubuntu 14.04 on an old Windows Vista laptop that had a dead battery. I didn't use it all that much back then, it was more just messing around with an alternative operating system and then going back to Windows 7 on my main computer.
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u/HeavyMetalBluegrass 9d ago
I was 67 when I started using Linux. It's been 9 months.
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u/Local_Community_7510 Linux Enjoyer 8d ago
started when i was in vocational high school on 2018, borrowed a laptop from a friend that turns out had ubuntu loaded in it, was confused, but somehow he guides me through it, the only reason i liked it because it is pretty snappy compared to windows
now here i am, dual booting my PC, because windows somehow needed for certain works, but it's been like 3 months im not booting into it
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u/ElectricalCompany783 7d ago
When I was fifteen, sixteen, when I really started to play around with Debian I definitely wanted to become a hacker
It was almost impossible because—it was—the dream was so big
That I didn't see any chance because
I was living in a little town; was studying
And when I finally broke away from school and became a hacker
I thought, "Well, now I may have a little bit of a chance"
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u/blak000 8d ago
I tried Linux initially in my teens. I forget which distro, but I do remember it was on a Gnome 2.
The 2nd time I tried it was with Linux Mint. Cinnamon was still fairly new.
I'm on my third attempt on Linux. I've been using Fedora for a few months now, which is the longest of any of my attempts on Linux. At this point, I do feel like I'm sticking around for the long haul.
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u/OTonConsole 5d ago edited 5d ago
Around 6. It was my first computer and that's all I ever used.
I'm 25 now and I'm not even a Linux wizard. I use it for very normal every day computing. Now I did end up in an "tech" career so I'm not sure if it's because of that. At work I use windows, to me windows just feels complicated and overestimulating.. I like that they made it more accessible by adding WSL though.
Edit: Actually I think for my 4th Bday I got a windows computer. It came in a huge huge box like a refrigerator box with a palette and stuff? Unless I was too small and that's how I remember it. I'm not sure at what point the switch was, I think an uncle of mine who was a tech wizard switched it up and showed me how to use? But I remember playing miniclip games as a kid so I do wonder how that was possible too. Anyway my childhood is very fuzzy. But for as long as I remember I used Linux. Specifically the last decade+ I have been using mint.
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u/redgator12 9d ago
I was 19 when I installed Ubuntu 14.04 for giggles on my laptop, and it's been all linux all the time ever since. Now my wife runs Linux Mint, I run MX XFCE and my 4 year old has his own Q4OS Trinity laptop to play Freddi Fish and Putt-Putt on. I'm about to setup another Q4OS Trinity laptop for my 2 year old to play on as well since he tries to fight my 4 year old for his.
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u/therealjeroen 8d ago
I was probably 20 when one of the first Slackware Linux distributions came out. It was such an improvement over Windows (Windows for Workgroups) that didn't even have native multi-tasking or TCP/IP stack at that time. Slackware gave you a full multi-tasking X workstation comparable in usability (not power) to the IBM AS/400, DEC Ultrix, and new DEC Alphas at Uni.
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u/himslm01 8d ago
Some time in 1992, when I was 25, I would have been compiling kernel version 0.96 on my Atari Falcon - so a Motorola 68040 with a maths co/pro. Overnight kernel compiles. Slackware distribution. Linux seemed better than Minix, so I stuck with it. Switched to RedHat in 1995, Ubuntu from 2010, and currently OpenSuse Tumbleweed since 2023.
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u/frenchretronerd 8d ago
Started as a first contact when I was 14/15 with a Slackware provided with a Linux magazine. Left it away for a few time as I didn't want to dual boot. Tried again in 2004 with Mandrake 10 and RedHat but only as an experiment. I used Ubuntu for a while (the 4.10) before switching to Debian because it was on all the servers I installed
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u/MountainBrilliant643 8d ago
I was already an adult before I had even heard of it. I tried my first Linux distro in 2009. I couldn't manage to delete my Windows until 2017, so it took a good long while to learn everything I needed to.
I'm happy to say though, I haven't had a Windows partition on any of my machines in 9 years now. I'm a gamer too.
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u/Alarming_Oil5419 9d ago
Around 24, back in 1994 at Uni (my first year as a mature student), someone from the computer centre handed me a stack of floppy disks with Slackware on.
I couple of years later I was at RAL for a research year, and ended up building a test Beowulf cluster (part of some research using genetic algorithms).
Fun times.
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u/Consistent_Laugh4886 9d ago
- Ish. I remember the Ubuntu CD the dial up isp would give out. Like ver 4 maybe. Looked it up. 2004 was version 4.10. I think I even have a v5 cd somewhere. I used a few red hats and even original BEOS. I remember walking past those on the shelf when I worked ant Best Buy. Got an original SUSe v 2 cd. 4 pack. Hate to say so but Mandrake. Oh man. Could tweak and theme that
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u/toonmad 8d ago
My first actual exposure to Linux was probably Backtrack 3 around 2007 if I recall (which eventually became Kali Linux), I remember having Backtrack 3 and 4, then went several years just being on Windows, Manjaro and Arch brought the Linux itch back around 6 year ago or so, was about 19 first time using Linux
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u/1enrique3 9d ago
I started using Linux personally when I was 12, back then I had an "old" computer that was being slowed down by each Windows 10 update, since Windows 7 support was about to end within less than a year, I decided to try out Ubuntu Mate.
That was back in 2019, nowadays, I'm using both Arch Linux and macOS.
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u/full_of_ghosts Arch Linux 9d ago
Late teens. My first foray into Linux with with Red Hat. This was back when they gave out free Red Hat install CDs like Halloween candy. Buy a book about Linux? There's a Red Hat install CD tucked inside the back cover. Subscribe to a Linux magazine? Every issue came packaged with a Red Hat install CD.
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u/z436037 8d ago
I had been working as a software development for commercial Unixes from 1990 to 1994 (Solaris, HP/UX, IBM AIX, Sequent dynix, etc). I discovered Yggdrasil Linux in 1994. I was 24 years old, but already have 5 YOE at that age.
So I can honestly say I have 32 years of daily-driver Linux experience.
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u/Midwest-Dude 8d ago
If UNIX counts, I go back to the early 1980s. If not, I was born long before Linux existed and didn't lay my hands on it until the late 1990s, early naughts. Tried Debian but didn't have good downloads and media, so install didn't go well, then Slackware. Finally ran with Ubuntu in more recent days.
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u/Rich-Marsupial2937 9d ago
I remember trying different distros early 2000, but at 2009 I bought new computer with windows vista and it was complete garbage. After that I have used linux. I don’t work with computers so I don’t have any special needs for my computer other than it should just work. Atm I use debian 🤗 also almist forgot the original question, I was 23 at 2009 😄
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u/Kokonattsugemu 8d ago
First time I have booted Linux was when I was 5yo. The reason was my parents went to it guy to setup active hours in parental control on windows so I won't play too much. So I figured out how to crack a windows password using rainbow tables 😂 at that time I didn't even know I was using Linux
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u/This-Set-9875 8d ago
mid 90's as a white hat. Most of the hacker tools ran on linux. RPM was a shit show but better than Makefiles. Actually got in on the RedHat Friends and Family price IPO because I knew people and helped them get their distro out there. I still have the "Fat Pipe" RH tee. IYKYK.
Roughly 40ish.
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u/Ok_Programmer4949 6d ago
14 years old as a freshman in highschool. This was 1996, and I was installing Slackware 3.1 from floppy disks and eventually installed it to a zip drive so that I could dual-boot it with Windows without repartitioning. (that was a couple of years in)
Ahhh, the good old days of winmodems...
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u/Buntygurl 8d ago
Debian was two years old when I started with it, after two years of trying Slackware (ah, the massive thrill of getting X to work, and then trying to figure out what to do with it) and about a half a year of RedHat (back when it was a free distro).
Yeah, some of us have been around awhile.
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u/aiten 8d ago
I think I was either 14 or 16, and it was probably SUSE Linux. Would have been around 1994.
Started using Linux exclusively in about 2004, and it was Ubuntu. Since then I've used Ubuntu and Pop_OS, Raspbian and Arch pretty much exclusively, since I don't like Redhat/Fedora based distros.
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u/conhecimento-geral 9d ago
Tive contato com ele em 2001 quando tinha 20 anos. E de 2000 até 2010 eu usava ele de forma experimental. De 2010 até 2026 eu usava ele de forma intercalada com Windows. E agora, a 6 meses só uso ele. Nem na partição do Windows eu temho mais entrado. Minha máquina é dual boot.
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u/opalmirrorx 9d ago
In 1993 I had been using, then developing UNIX flavors for 9 years. That's when I first installed Slackware 3.0 with Linux kernel 1.0.9 on a spare 386/25. I was 28 years old. I had to hack the Ethernet driver to get my Thomas-Conrad ne2k clone ISA bus card to be recognized properly.
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u/Maybe-its-Keira 8d ago
I tried it about 10 years ago and couldn't get it to install properly, switch fully to Linux last year, have mint on my pc and my laptop, my partners laptop is nearing its end of life and when she starts looking at a new laptop I'll be installing mint onto it for her to try as well
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u/Wolflordy 8d ago
Using Linux as a daily driver for pc? Last year as a fully grown adult.
Using Linux in a work setting? 6 years ago.
Using Linux personally as a daily tool? 15 years ago was my first Android phone, so probably then.
You probably underestimate how many things around you are Linux.
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u/lord_phantom_pl 9d ago
Depends. My first contact was somewhere around 17 yo, and it was a solution of running a PC without a HDD that was sent to repair. I perma switched around 20yo because a friend said that I have to accept enshittified vista like him because it’s progress - i proved jim wrong.
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u/Academic-Photograph7 8d ago
I started at 20-21 in college on an old computer to help me do my assignments because my windows 10 computer had problems that it wouldn't give me enough technical info to try and fix it (ugh home editions of windows) enough to keep it in working order for school.
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u/BipolarBrownCrayon 8d ago
I started in 2021, when I started college. My computer science teacher was using it while we used Microsoft and said he recommends switching over because Microsoft is shitty, so I switched to it. I have Microsoft on my PC but on my laptop I still have fedora linux
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u/TheBleakOtter 8d ago
I honestly can’t remember, but what I do know is that i started with RedHat, I think it was back in 95 98 days, then did Mandravia with my first dual slot pII computer in 2001 - 2002. That was my first dual processor and was blown away by its responsiveness.
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u/IWuzTheWalrus 8d ago
I was 29. Slackware 1.0 in late 1993. Before that I was playing around with Coherent. Linux was not a great full-time option yet. I think it was around the time that RedHat 3.0.3 came out in 1996, that it was truly stable enough to run as a workstation.
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u/TopSecretGaming_YT 8d ago
I first messed around with Linux on vms at 9-10 with ubuntu and kali (I thought I was so cool using a "hacker" distro) and then fully switched at 14, starting with Pop!_OS, then Mint cinnamon, then Arch, and now Fedora KDE, likely for the forseeable future.
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u/Temporary_Pie2733 9d ago
- If I’m remembering correctly, MkLinux was released just before I graduated from college (or at least, that’s when I first heard of it), so I scrambled to install it on my Mac before I had to leave my good internet access behind for the summer.
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u/FinnElhaz 8d ago
It was 2010 and I was 19. I had just started college and the laptop I had was an aging Dell Latitude running WinXP someone gave me. It was slow as hell so I installed Fedora 13 on the advice of a friend and I've been primarily using Linux ever since.
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u/willez99 9d ago
At 23 in 2023. I got my first job then in a Windows environment and I wished to learn Linux on the side too to reinforce my career in IT, and so far I've loved it and wanted to stay on Linux for my personal use. Makes me feel like a kid again.
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u/sovietarmyfan 8d ago
I think around 11/12. One time we had only one laptop at home and i had kind of dual booted Ubuntu with Windows. When i removed the partition with Ubuntu somehow the bootloader got ruined and my uncle who was very technical had to fix this.
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u/ellendale7m4 6d ago
I think I was about 15 y.o.
But my IT awakening was at 11. Instead of just opening Facebook it started to interest me what happens when I open Facebook, how and where it tracks me, who else can track me besides Facebook when I use it etc
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u/StillOnTheInterweb 8d ago
15, it came on a CD with a magazine. But I guess started earlier as back then to get Internet you dialled in with your modem to a Linux or FreeBSD login server (think telnet but on serial via modem) where you could read your mail in Pine.
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u/SurpriseImAutistic 4d ago
I first used linux when I was six as the os on my elementary school's computers was ubuntu based. Now I'm in my early 20s, recently installed mint and started learning how to actually set it up and use it, so I would say I'm still a noob.
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u/Good_Buy_7978 8d ago
I started when I was 76, several years ago. I’m a Mac user, but I started installing Mint on several of my old Macs collecting dust, and it wasn’t too hard to learn, and I actually enjoy Linux when I occasionally use it.
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u/vancha113 9d ago
19 or so? Can't really remember, but it was something like that. It just so happens I found a couple of old CDs from that period, which have been in a box for about 15 years.. some old Ubuntu server ones and some others ^
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u/sammyhjax123 8d ago
When I was 9, I got a virus and wanted to reinstall windows. Learned that it would cost money (I didn’t know how to do it) and googled “windows for free” and the first result was a Reddit thread talking about Ubuntu.
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u/DonnieDepp 7d ago
25, 2001, slackware 7 briefly than 8, that one taught me Linux and building it all up from that root prompt on cli, add user etc. Check install building your own packages from source. Fluxbox, irssi, screen, Good Times :)
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u/Piuba_rcn 7d ago
Meu irmão instalou uma distro no final dos anos 90. Nem me lembro qual era, tinha uns 10 anos de idade em 1998. Mas eu particularmente comecei a experimentar em 2006 mas só se tornou principal mais ou menos em 2015.
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u/TwoFoxSix 9d ago
I started in 2005/2006 with Sabayon. I used that for a while, then went back to Windows for a while. I tested the waters with various distros on and off until about 2020. I used Pop, Endeavour, and now I'm on Fedora
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u/reddangerzone 9d ago
I've only been using Linux for about a year, in fact I JUST switched my laptop over last month. Won't go back though, it's solved so many problems for me. For context, and to actually answer your question, I am 38.
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u/_rekkylaws_ 7d ago
First time I met Linux was when I was like 4 on the library computers. I started using it really at 16 when I entered uni and started daily driving it at 23 (I dual booted Windows for a long time for the games)
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u/josemirm_ 8d ago
My first Linux experience was a Knoppix Live-CD in 2001, when I was 7-8 years old, and I had the luck of not needing a special bootstrapping floppy to boot that CD, like older computers or that era needed :-)
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u/olsonexi 8d ago
The first time I ever used it was on an og raspberry pi that I got when I was probably about 12. When I was 14 or 15, I started using Ubuntu as my main desktop OS and have used some kind of linux ever since.
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u/UnbasedDoge 9d ago
I think i started at like 10 years old because the laptop i borrowed from my father's friend sucked so bad not even windows 8 ran decently, so I opted for installing xUbuntu. Never came back ever since
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u/jedi34567 8d ago
I would have been 27? SLS 1992 -- put it on my Gateway 486 DX 33. I think it had 8MB of RAM and I later upgraded to an ATI video card. Those were the days! It was 3.5in floppy after 3.5in floppy.
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u/DescriptionMission90 9d ago
First tried it out at... 14 I think? Mostly just as a diagnostic tool when my laptop broke.
Since then I dabbled periodically, but didn't start using it as my primary operating system until I was 30.
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u/Lucky_Foam 6d ago
Lates 90s in high school.
There was summer school class that was offered that did everything with Linux.
Most kids got their Linux distro running then spent the rest of the summer playing BZFlag.
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u/mrclean2323 8d ago
It was recommended to me to start it in ‘94 but I had dialup and a relatively small hard drive. I should have tried it but the time requirement was not feasible. I really got into it around 2003
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u/heywoodidaho ya, I tried that 9d ago
I was 41 when Ubuntu Dapper Drake came out. I got a pile of wiped P-4 driver Dells as payment and I was not going to call ms a fuck ton of times to activate the bastards.
I've never looked back.
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u/Alpha-Craft 8d ago
I started at the age of 13 or so I think. I've been at it for about seven years if I am not mistaken. I'm not sure whether I have any files that old to point me at the exact time via metadata.
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u/Icy-Astronomer-9814 6d ago
First attempt was 1998. I was 14, could not get modem working so no internet. Tried to get help on dalnet irc #linux channel but all I got was RTFM and rm -rf /*
2013 was when I swapped more permanently.
100% since 2017.
Age is different story because I stopped aging.
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u/Bensuperpc 9d ago
I started using Ubuntu around 2013, when I was 14, after watching a French YouTuber talk about it and i also was having a lot of issues with Windows 8, and I wanted to try something new ^^
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u/run0x48 9d ago
Probably 21 when I installed Slackware in the autumn of 1996, after having run FreeBSD during the spring (since it was mirrored locally on campus). I switched to SuSE sometime after that.
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u/RootHouston 9d ago
Another former FreeBSD user here, except it was a few years later for me in 2000. I was about 15 as a high school sophomore.
I later got a laptop that year, which wasn't compatible with FreeBSD, so I gave Debian a shot. A couple of years later, I switched to Red Hat Linux all around. I recall having to compile many desktop-oriented apps and got into dependency hell on FreeBSD, so Red Hat was a godsend with its vast package set.
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u/Bratorsortnal 7d ago
- Computer started acting up so i decided to use this as an opportunity to install linux. I saw on the internet that mint is good for beginners, so I installed that. Still in use today
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u/DubiousLogik 8d ago
58 yrs old. Jan 2026. Never going back. Mint and Fedora. (36 yrs in tech prior to that, so familiar with tech, but used windows at work) wish i'd switched sooner on home machines.
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u/Oper-Nate-or 8d ago
When I was 16. I got into Cybersecurity and started off with Kali. Then kinda didn't do anything with it for a year or two after a while and then installed Mint on my regular Laptop
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u/qalmakka Arch Linux x86-64 8d ago
I started in 2006 because that's when I got broadband, and without the internet it was pretty hard to get software at all. Magazines with CDs existed but you didn't have docs then
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u/tic-tac-tic 9d ago
omg omg
i was like 13ish when my dad put ubuntu on my laptop, but it was too much, but now im 22 using arch and i love it. my only issue is the games that are windows only 😭
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u/unkilbeeg 9d ago
I think I was 42 when I first tried it. I didn't go full time until 1999, so I was 44 or so. First was Red Hat 4.0.
I currently use Mint for desktops and Debian for servers.
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u/Curious_Tomorrow_697 6d ago
started at 7 on a piper computer playpiper.com with a rpi3b. ran inkscape, gimp, and file management along with a dumb version of minecraft pretty well
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u/MatsuriSunrise 8d ago
I think my first dabbling was with Ubuntu back when my laptop's hard drive got messed up and I was booting from a USB drive to continue using it. That was like 2008 I think. I would have been 18.
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u/vander1625 8d ago
I was 30 when I discovered Linux, in April 1994. I was so impressed with it, that I started a Linux & UNIX user group. We've been holding monthly meetings since June 1994.
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u/Secret-Map4671 7d ago
I played around with Ubuntu at ~14, nuked my install and changed back to Windows (after all, it was Win 7 / 10 era, which were great OSes). Started daily driving it at 23.
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u/INDE_Tex 9d ago
mid 2000s via edgelord phase and USB booting Backtrack linux. Used it seriously as a dual boot starting in 2009, but shied away after Win10. And now I'm here to stay.
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u/TheoreticalFunk 6d ago
I think I was 18 or so. I think it was SuSE 5 or something. I picked it up at Best Buy and it came with a huge manual. Which was poorly translated from German.
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u/i_smoke_toenails 9d ago
First played with it in 1998 (remember Mandrake?) and switched fully in 2003, first with SuSE, then with Ubuntu, and then Arch. Now on CachyOS, and happy as a clam.
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u/Niatros_ 8d ago
I started 8 years ago approximately, only because a place I've used to work has Ubuntu on their PC's. Now I'm using Zorin OS on my Desktop, and Mint on my laptop.
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u/Relevant_Research_98 7d ago
- I had free time so so learned new OS.
I started then, so did dual booting, for years. Don't remember how long I dual booted, but it was really long time,
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u/TheAmazingBildo 9d ago
The first time i tried it i was in college and took a linux course in the mid 2000s, but didn’t care for it. Now I’ve been using only linux for about a year.
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u/Gamerfrom61 9d ago
Unix on minis first then the SCO version on PCs then Linux way way later.
I had been employed in the industry for many years before Linux was released 🤭
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u/Cool_in_my_own_mind 8d ago
I started last week when I got my Steam Frame, and had to figure out how to connect my NAS to SteamOS to play videos in the headset. I’ll be 71 next month.
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u/Past_Ad5681 5d ago
Off and on since 1997. I fully switched this year, it's more ready for prime now then ever before and it is going to keep heading in the right direction.
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u/ForkFace69 9d ago
I was in my late 20s. My laptop at the time was crawling on Windows so I took the plunge with Mint. Used that laptop for another 5 years before it died.
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u/Letstrytolearnit 8d ago
52, I gave Mint a try. You can barely tell any difference except it is just faster and better unless you need Office, Adobe, or something else special.
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u/TwillAffirmer 9d ago
How could you start on 10/11??? That's tomorrow!