How long have you been using Linux ?

[Infidelus]

Probably somewhere towards the end of 2016. Certainly after Windows 10 came out, and I think I put up with it for around a year before throwing my teddies out of the pram and binning it for good*. I had played with Linux Mint on a few occasions before but never managed to stick with it as I like my gaming sessions. I'm not really much into distro hopping but I have looked at a couple in VMs and I do run a couple of Ubuntu servers and a few Raspberry Pi's.

* I do have a copy of Windows still installed as a VM but I've probably only booted the VM up a couple of times in the last year, and that was just to download some Windows software, that I wanted to try in wine, that the website was blocking from Linux.

[supertech555]

I have been using Linux mint fully (other than to run one app that refuses to run in wine) for about a year and a half I initially installed 2 years ago but it took some time to switch over from Windows.

[MurphCID]

I just found my Mandrake Linux boot disk; a 3.5" floppy! I had thought I had gotten rid of it years ago, but nope it was in a box, so moving lets you find all sorts of things.

[old_noob]

10 years in May.

[fstjohn]

Going on 10 years. Tried several different distros and quickly settled on Mint Cinnamon.

[MikeNovember]

Hi,

I had the first use of command line by using Cygwin (1995) then Mingw+Msys (2000) on Windows.
It was not really Linux, rather GNU.

Then, I have experimented colinux, it was a Linux kernel running on Windows. I had installed GNU and a desktop environment over it, and had access to GUI desktop using VNC. Unfortunately, its developers were unable to make a 64 bits version (2007 - 2014).

I have also experimented live CDs or DVDs, my favourite was Knoppix. (2000) Still existing, but no longer updated.

I have also used a Linux version installed on the same partition as Windows, and launched like a windows app: launching it was inducing a restart and boot in Linux. I think this trick had been invented by Linux Mint people.

I have used several versions of Ubuntu or Linux Mint in virtual machines (with VMware).

I have installed several versions of Linux Mint and Ubuntu on old computers that I gave.

Finally, when Windows 7 on my laptop became obsolete, I tried to install Windows 10 and got a BSOD. Naturally I installed Linux Mint (18.2, 19.2, 20.2, 20.3 and finally 21.3) Mate edition, to have a simple desktop, without bells and whistles. I still use Windows 7 and 10 Pro in virtual machines.

So, I would say that I have been using GNU / Linux intermittently for ~30 years, and permanently for 4 years.

And I have been using computers constantly for 49 years (the 1st one I used was programmed with punched cards).

I have programmed in Fortran, COBOL, various BASICs, mainly for scientific calculations. I stopped when I found Mathcad, that I still use, or the free Mathcad inspired Smath Desktop.

I have "hacked" several systems (Apple II, Windows, Linux) where hacking means arriving to do unexpected things with an operating system with a minimum of programming and a maximum of reuse.

Regards,

MN

[wwblm]

I've been playing with Mint since version 19 IIRC. Made it my daily driver last summer. Just now I was going though a series of video tutorials for Linux certification. So much of what they were going over was very familiar to me as I learned it starting in 1999 with Mac OS X Server 1.0. Learning that got me comfortable with using a shell and so many things that are basically the same as they are in Linux although that was free BSD Mach based. Rock solid system. Used it to run a web server for about a decade. Of course the Mac OS X came after that and hid much the free BSD stuff but it was still there and I used some of it so really the transition from Mac to Linux was not difficult for me even though I am not a computer nerd and have never had any real training. I just wanted to run a web server in 1999 so I learned what I needed to with the server product.
In about 2009 I put Ubuntu on a laptop for my wife. I probably spent a total of several hours using that and she used it for a few years before going back to windows with a new laptop.
I really see myself as quite a newb when it comes to Linux while at the same time I feel very comfortable with it as the foundations are not that different from what I learned with the original Mac OS X Server and with Mint 21.3 it just feels polished and comfortable like the Mac OS before it went down hill.

[Dan-cer]

Mint since about 2015, other - Ubuntu mainly - since about 2012. At that time I was quite happy with Win7 and unhappy with hardware driver problems with Linux.
Since Mint 19 I am very happy with a stable and beautiful Mint Cinnamon.

[Pierre]

mostly this side of Y2K


it was with Mandriva / Mandrake, from some UK magazine.
then onto Ubuntu with all of those delivered disks, of theirs
Finally onto this LinuxMint System,

maybe, around 16 years, in this new year.

[jdg]

Tried to install slackware 3.1 in 1996, and accidentally deleted my MS windows 3. Then Red Hat, Suse 4.3, Mandrake, Ubuntu and Xubuntu, Mint. Debian at work between 2000 and 2012. Then at home used Arch till last year, then Fedora for 6 months . Debian for 2 months then Arch again. I finally installed Linux mint 2 weeks ago

[oswald_c]

Later this year will be the 15th anniversary of me switching from Windows XP to Linux Mint, and sticking with it. I tried a few times before (SuSE, Ubuntu etc) but the switch to Mint made it stick.

[DisturbedDragon]

Full time on Linux since 1998. Visited many times before that.

[151tom]

Prior to Windows XP EOL 2014 so almost 10 years.

I cut my Linux teeth with Debian Wheezy.

While learning about Linux I used Windows Vista and had no complaints with Windows Vista.

I keep a working Windows OS computer to run Flight Simulator X although it stays disconnected from the internet.

[MurphCID]

Full time on Linux since 1998. Visited many times before that.

Wow, you are my hero! Amazing.

[BwingBob]

About 24 years for me. I remember having to roll your own kernel and having to have a creative sound card and a cd disk connected to it to even think of it working. Back in the day the compatible hardware was very limited.

Creative sound card and Winmodems! Man, I do not miss those days.

Bob

[MurphCID]

About 24 years for me. I remember having to roll your own kernel and having to have a creative sound card and a cd disk connected to it to even think of it working. Back in the day the compatible hardware was very limited.

Creative sound card and Winmodems! Man, I do not miss those days.

Bob

HA! What a blast from the past. I remember getting my first of both and installing them, and then futzing around for days to get things working right.

[BenTrabetere]

I selected Between Ten to Fifteen Years because I first started using Linux with Redhat 5.0 ... I just did not stick with it because OS/2 was still a better fit for me.

I switched to Linux in officially in 2014 when WinXP hit EoL. So technically I guess I should be in the Between Five to Ten Years Club, but I am not changing my status.

[Kory]

I also started with Red Hat over 20 years ago, but that lasted only for a while during studying. Then around 2008 everybody went to Ubuntu so I went there too. It was great because you could find so many answers for troubleshooting and it was a much better experience than with RH for me.

Then things changed, I had to work a lot with Windows at the job, I was a vivid gamer who needed stuff to just run instead of getting them to run (I had so little time and energy), so I took a break from Linux for a while.

But now I'm back and I'm not going anywhere anymore. All my use cases work great on Linux and will only improve from now on. I'm starting to look for opportunities to give something back (not only donations) and I'm beginning to find projects and people I can support. I'm no programmer, I cannot code, I can "only" do other things to help. And I still need to learn a lot about Linux. Guess I'm already at the right place for that here

[Tuor]

That is a hard question to answer. I have had an emergency live linux distro (Knoppix) for many years, perhaps since 2004.But i never really installed it in a computer until last year where i installed LM in one of my computers. I wanted to find a replacement for windows 10, and since i hadn't supported hardware for W11 i decided to test it so i installed LM 21.1 on my core2quad. Since then i upgraded my main computer, but have LMDE 6 running on 2 of my computers, including my core2quad.

[Creeper]

Hello. I'm use Linux 7 months. My first linux-Linux mint 20.0. Very good Linux for start. Now I'm use Linux mint 21.3 and kde neon.