Being a geek, I have tried many linux distros (I’ve been using Linux since 1998, on and off). Curiosity was what was driving my usage of it.
In the early 2000s, when I used to write for OSNews.com (second only to Slashdot for OS tech news back then), I really didn’t find any distro polished enough to be a daily driver for me. Red Hat was big at the time, but even when ubuntu came around, it was still not as polished as it is today. These days, I’m using Debian-Testing mostly, however I concede that the best distro for newbies (and for me really, I’m too old now to be tinkering) is Linux Mint (flagship version). Mint really is well-thought out for daily usage. It might not have the latest tech innovation in it, or be bold with its choices, but it just works 99% of the time.
As time has gone by, and seen corporations taking everything for themselves (via enshittification), I have stopped using Linux because it was the geeky/cool thing to do, but I started using it because it frees me from all the spyware, and corporation agendas. Back in the 2000s, when I was a news editor for foss matters, I was mostly siding with the BSD license side of things (and mit/apache/ etc). I felt that the GPL was too restrictive, and that we should allow innovation take its course as it wants to. Now, that I’ve lost all my faith in corporations doing the right (smart) thing, I’m now a GPL3/AGPL type of a gal. The more “restrictively open” something can be, the better. Don’t allow anyone to manipulate you, or use you, or take away your data etc.
Excel wouldn’t stop converting sku numbers to date formats. IT guy was excited to share an “easy fix” for that with Open Office…
When I saw his genuine excitement as he described Linux, plus the security it provided I realized, if I ran Linux I’d have the best support in the company. And I did.
I eventually had to move on from Linux at work after 10yrs or so but it’s all I run at home.
All because of Excel and those fucking date codes. Which yes, Open Office solved as advertised.
And yes I know you don’t need Linux for that but it was a long time ago.
I think I originally checked it out after watching an LTT video on a gaming distro, because i liked computers and I was pretty good at them. Not sure if I was the problem or the distro but it was pretty bad. Still fell in love.
Now I appreciate the open source aspect, but I still like it because I can do more with it and learn in the process.
I first got into Linux because I was a kid with an old hand-me-down laptop that was meant to run Windows 98 but I somehow stuffed Windows XP on there (it had a 4gb HDD and it was filled to the brim, I’m shocked in hindsight that it actually installed). Then I discovered Ubuntu (I think version 6.06?) and installed it, and it ran great! Once I got newer computers I ended up using Windows primarily but usually had a Linux PC kicking around. In college I started dual booting my main machine since Linux proved to be useful for my courses (Computer Science). Then I built a PC and just installed Windows 10 on it, but now that my 7th gen Intel CPU is “too old” to run Windows 11, I said screw it and installed Linux again. Plus I just really like having a bash shell natively, and a proper package manager is really nice.
Mostly because windows kept bothering me by breaking or changing something every single dn update so I jumped ship and have been pretty happy. Now windows only gets used for certain things I don’t feel like configuring my normal system for.
It was and still is a few things: Mostly the cool factor. It’s different, does what I tell it (safety be damned lol ).
Security: Mostly sane defaults (like not making the initial user with full admin rights).
In the early days, a major factor was being poorer, constantly rebuilding Frankenstein PCs that would trip Ms activation crap. And with so many used parts, performance was better too.
I quickly fell partly into the Linux and open source rabbit hole.
So far I have tried small amount of distros on VMs, and the only distros I’ve run outside of VM and outside of my IT classes I’ve gone through so far would be Ubuntu on a very crappy laptop, and MX Linux on my current laptop. So far, MX with KDE Plasma 5.x (don’t remember the specific version) is my favorite distro.
Partly for freedom, partly for free software, partly for tinkering opportunities. I broke some installs before I started thinking of Linux as my daily driver.
I’ve tried Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, Puppy (and then Fatdog), Knoppix, Rasbian, Xandros, Damn Small Linux, Tiny Core, Arch and Endeavour, but Mint is my favourite. It’s never failed to just work.
Well … I first got into contact with OpenSource due to Gratis: OpenOffice, Firefox etc. Combining my knowledge of OpenSource with my tendency to break stuff (Reinstalling Boston for the nth time) led me to Linux which I first tinkered with and soon fully adapted.
I had a short hopping phase where I went from Ubuntu (my starter) via Debian (accidentally tried stable) to Arch.
Stuck with arch on my personal machines now run Ubuntu for my work machine and Debian for Servers.
My favourite distro is the right tool for the job (see above) but I’m pretty happy with Arch
Windows post 7 was and remains annoying and getting worse all the time. So I wanted an OS without telemetry and one that I could control the updates on. I also work with Linux a lot at work. I use Alma 9 for a LTS release. Don’t have to mess with it much.
I made the switch at the start of the year out of curiosity. I had worked for QNX as a student and though that I should have had a better understanding of the system, so I started using WSL for all my programming.
Then joined Lemmy in the summer and that increased my interest in trying it out full time. I was also getting increasingly disappointed with Windows pushing updates for Win11 and features like onedrive.
I’ve been super happy with it so far. I’ve gotten way more familiar with my OS and it’s been such a huge shift in perspective for me to be able to shape the way the OS works to my workflow rather than the inverse.
I chose it for development reasons. I kind of fell into a decent career but one I didn’t enjoy and was tied to a specific geographic region. So, I was learning to code and my coworkers who wrote code were using Linux and all our servers were CentOS (or maybe WhiteHat or whatever it was called then). So, I installed Fedora Core 4 — I’m old — and liked it better than Windows. I loved being able to customize everything.
Eventually, I learned the philosophical reasons for open source after I got into it but they matched my personal beliefs so that was no issue.
I used to distro hop frequently and I’ve probably tried all the major distros at least once but after awhile, I began to just stick to Fedora or Ubuntu LTS for servers (and I guess Arch on Steam Deck, Raspbian on the Raspberry Pi, etc.). I like Vanilla Gnome nowadays and when I want to see a new distro, I just check it out in a VM.
I think Chrunchbang (R.I.P.) was my favorite distro when I was all-in on distro hopping and customizing everything. But at some point for a developer, your OS becomes more of a tool for opening an IDE and/or terminal and you value stability over customization or having the very latest software. In the Flatpak era, that’s even more true since you can run the newest versions regardless of the system.
I like Vanilla Gnome nowadays and when I want to see a new distro, I just check it out in a VM.
I liked GNOME 3, and first disliked GNOME 4 but with the gnome-tweaks tool (to get the two extra window buttons back) and the easy to enable Night Light feature, I got used to it and appreciate it more and more.
I think Chrunchbang (R.I.P.) was my favorite distro when I was all-in on distro hopping and customizing everything.
But at some point for a developer, your OS becomes more of a tool for opening an IDE and/or terminal and you value stability over customization or having the very latest software. In the Flatpak era, that’s even more true since you can run the newest versions regardless of the system.
I had the most elaborate Conky scripts for CrunchBang. That was a fun era for experimentation. Even the closed source OSes were trying new things because of the transition to smartphones.
It’s probably just as fun today but everyone likes the music that came out when they were young and experiencing it for the first time.
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