When did you come to Linux?

[SpectreOl]

+1

A little makeover would be nice.. Main thing is that its functional, no watermarks and does what you want, without emptying your pocket book..

[BG405]

And Linux isn't???? With Windows you have to purchase useful apps like Orifice, Photoshop and the like. With Linux, most are pre-installed and FREE!!!!

That's the point, really. With Windows you pay for lots of incluided stuff without being able to "build your own package". They (MS) would not get away with charging so much if the OS were more bare-bones or customizable as to the packages you wanted. Then you have to fork out extra for the really useful stuff i.e. Office. Even the Bluetooth stack had to be paid for.

I personally didn't like them adding all these programs for stuff I had my own choice of software for (such as Nero), knowing that this was all included in the licence fee whether I wanted it or not. It also hurts independant software houses.

In Linux you may get a good range of software included in a distro, but at least it doesn't empty your wallet in the process.

[MurphCID]

+1

A little makeover would be nice.. Main thing is that its functional, no watermarks and does what you want, without emptying your pocket book..

I agree, I use it all the time. I have MS office on my wife's machine because that is what she is used to, and she does not want to change. The kids machines all have Libre Office as well as the MS Office.

[Alpha_sh]

i started using linux only a couple of months ago (march-april 2018) and it started with experimenting with virtual machines running linux, and i began comparing different distros through virtual machines, and i liked linux mint compared to many of the other distros i tried (ubuntu, manjaro, debian, fedora are some i tried) in user experience, i eventually thought "i have an extra hard drive im not using in my system, why not install linux on that to get the full experience" and began to install and use mint 18.3 (eventually installed mint 19 after it came out). i eventually started to use it more often than windows, and i decided to install all of my games on it and ended up gradually switching for good (i still have windows installed, but only use it when i need to use a program that doesnt work in linux or WINE)

[MurphCID]

I don't see what the issue would be to make iTunes work on Linux since it works on the Mac O/S which is based on BSD. It should not be terribly hard to port it to Linux if anyone cared to do it at Apple.

[BG405]

It should not be terribly hard to port it to Linux if anyone cared to do it at Apple.

It could be a licensing issue, it is Apple after all.

[rui no onna]

Around early this month or maybe late last month (via LiveUSB)? Now, I'm ready to actually install. I just need to find how to get multiboot with btrfs subvolumes working (currently on my 6th try, thread here if anyone wants to help). I'm still kinda undecided between Mint Cinnamon, Mint KDE (yeah, I know up to 2023 only), Manjaro KDE, Kubuntu and KDE Neon hence will be multibooting for now.

Tried Linux a few times over the years.

1. Red Hat, Mandrake and Slackware in early 2000: all fail install.
2. Ubuntu/Kubuntu (Breezy) in 2005 via the free CDs: couldn't get wifi working and even Ubuntu forums tell you to RTFM or to search Google, except there's no solution to be found via either.
3. Kubuntu (Hardy) again in 2008: multiboot with Windows and Hackintosh so it didn't end up getting used much.

This time, I'm installing on a dedicated laptop. I dread going to Windows 10 and Macs are expensive so really hoping one of the Linux distros stick.

[rasmith1959]

I've been toying around with different Linux distros for quite a while. I've tried Mandrake, Red Hat, Suse, and Fedora but always kept going back to Windows mostly because there were three things that kept me going back to Windows after a few weeks, games, Quicken and iTunes. As I've gotten older I just don't play the games I used to as often as I did a few years ago, so that's something that I won't miss. As for Quicken, I've found a suitable replacement that runs on Linux called MoneyDance. And finally for iTunes, I've been reading about how others have gotten MediaMonkey to run on Linux using Wine.I'm determined this time to get that going and give Windows the boot!

To top it all off, I was recently affected by MS's little snafu that deleted personal files. That was the final straw... fortunately I had backup so I didn't lose everything, just a few days worth of data. Still though that was enough to drive me to Linux for good this time.So I've just spent the last couple of days getting Linux Mint 19 set up on my HP 15" laptop, and things are working just great! Haven't had any major issues, yet nor do I foresee any problems ahead either.

[coffee412]

To top it all off, I was recently affected by MS's little snafu that deleted personal files. That was the final straw...

Good you didnt stick around for that windows thing. Now, After pulling back that update and reissuing it, It kills your sound

Glad your here

[Asusucks]

Yesterday.

I tried different distros the day before and choose this one. Unfortunately it seems i will have to go back to win 10. Maybe some day in future i will come back.

[Fred Barclay]

Good you didnt stick around for that windows thing. Now, After pulling back that update and reissuing it, It kills your sound

Sigh. I'm getting random freezes while everything was fine beforehand. And this is on a Surface Pro -- Microsoft hardware! I'd kinda figured MS hardware would be the safest from Windows incompatibilities or whatever it is.

[Faust]

.....
-- Microsoft hardware! I'd kinda figured MS hardware would be the safest from Windows incompatibilities or whatever it is.

Really ?
You surprise me .... You always come across as very smart

....... but joking aside , let's not delude ourselves about MS .
"The Bork " does not discriminate in any way ..... " resistance is futile" etc ( Wilders has a long-running thread called "Bork Tuesday " )

What finally made me move to GNU/Linux as a daily drive was the forcing of W10 upgrades , and the underhand tactics that were used to do it .
I'd already been using Linux / Unix systems for years , but more as an interest / hobby / alternate system .

But much as I detest MS , I'll admit that I still have current MS systems running :- W7 on bare-metal and W8 /W10 VMs .
I need them .... working with them helps pay the bills

Edit : In fairness , GNU/Linux is not immune to borking .... there have been a few kernel updates that have done their share of vandalism

[Moem]

Yesterday.

I tried different distros the day before and choose this one. Unfortunately it seems i will have to go back to win 10. Maybe some day in future i will come back.

Mod note:
Helpful answers to this post, and related troubleshooting, are now here.

[Fred Barclay]

Really ?
You surprise me .... You always come across as very smart

Bwahaha!

I was convinced by OneNote to give them a try -- plus, the fact that my work Win7 machine has been rather reliable made me think I could use Win 10.
And I was right... up until this last update!

[all41]

Bwahaha!

Win7 machine has been rather reliable made me think I could use Win 10.

NONSENSE.
Absolute heresy

[catweazel]

Bwahaha!

Win7 machine has been rather reliable made me think I could use Win 10.

NONSENSE.
Absolute heresy

I have a stake and a pile of wood ready...

[gostal]

Like you, my first encounter with Linux was the Mandrake but that was back in 97. I loved it. My job computer was loaded with Window NT which was OK when it worked except that many Windows programs would not run. The other thing was the blue screens that kept popping up. I reinstalled about once a month. Linux was a relief. So what, if a process hanged. I just had to restart it, not the whole damn computer and I never had to reinstall because it stopped working altogether. And it had compilers and a complete set of working tools out of the box. I didn't have to spend hours installing third party software. I also liked the philosophy of open source. If you really wanted to you could rewrite the program that didn't work the way you wanted it to. So Linux in various flavors has stayed with me for a long time in dual boot setups but now it's Linux only on my work desktop, OpenSuse Leap 42.3 to be precise. The administrative things I have to do with Windows is served by a virtual Win 7. Not my choice. really. I always preferred dual boot as the OS gets the entire hardware, not just a piece of it, but the support people won't have it any more. On my laptop I have Mint 19 dual booting with win 7 but that I did myself. Linux Mint has really saved that laptop which is rather old and was complaining loudly about the strain Windows used to put on it. Now, I can keep the Windows load to a bare minimum and let Mint be the work horse.

I have to agree that people in the community fora in general are more helpful today than back in the day. In general, I said, as a matter of fact I have posted two questions here that as yet have not received any replies. I didn't expect that, usually someone replies. However, since I always was one for looking under the hood, if don't get any help or don't find anything useful on the Internet I don't complain as it is always just a matter of time to find out it the problem is solvable and how to solve it or if there is no solution.

[MurphCID]

Really ?
You surprise me .... You always come across as very smart

Bwahaha!

I was convinced by OneNote to give them a try -- plus, the fact that my work Win7 machine has been rather reliable made me think I could use Win 10.
And I was right... up until this last update!

Windows 10 is really stable, and not bad at all in that aspect. I just loathe the update process, and the constant spying on me.

[oldgranola]

UNIX 1990 but just as an end user. We moved from VMS VAX off a Dec Alpha. Then a few years later we learned how to do xterm gui out to the pc's. that was cool. I got 86'd off the Sun graphics server when caught cloning cgi aircraft on the flight demmo. The computer was for molecular modelling. they found me in the server room in the morning 'napping'. pretty cool stuff at the time. I did some command line Unix for 'R' for biostats in the early 2000's. Then a lot more on my recent "sabbatical" back in academia. But I didnt' run my own unix/linux systems on my own hardware till 2011. Never been the same... .

[MurphCID]

Like you, my first encounter with Linux was the Mandrake but that was back in 97. I loved it.

At last another Mandrake user! I thought I was the only one out here.