Way back in the day (say 1990) I used the Commodore Amiga platform, loved it, made me want to become a developer. It also already back then instilled a hatred for Microsoft in me.

Then windows 95 happened, the Amiga platform pretty much died, and I reluctantly switched to using Microsoft windows. For years I gave it a chance, I really did! I hated pretty much everything about it, except total Commander and Irfan view

Somewhere in 99 i bought a mini home server, and a friend of mine installed Slackware. I managed to break it within days and thought Linux was just too hard.

Then in 2001 or so I started working with a Redhat server, I believe first over telnet, then SSH and I started learning about the command line and loved it. I leaned compiling which was a bit of a drag to have to always do, but then I learned about packages and very shortly after that, package managers (yum was the first, I believe) and fell in love.

Then in 2002, I believe, I saw either fedora or Redhat desktops and learned about dual installations. I installed fedoara next to my windows install so that o could try it and work with the familiar windows, but I loved it so much that I quite literally never looked back. 3 months later I deleted my windows partition.

2004, I think, I switched to Ubuntu with KDE which later became Kubuntu.

I worked on a Linux desktop machine that allowed on 1 gigabyte Celeron CPU computer with one internal graphics and 4 graphics cards, usb splitters and usb Audio, keyboards, and mice, 5 users to work with KDE on that single computer. Novus, it was called. The project was a technical success and a huge commercial failure and since it was with an external investor, we weren’t allowed to make it open source, unfortunately.

I started working in a large data center in Latin America in around 2007, I believe, as a senior Linux administrator for 4 years, had a lot of laughs at the expense of the windows team, seeing how clunky and work intense their windows servers were in comparison with my Linux servers.

Some four-five years later I started my own software development company, all Linux only. Everyone, including the devs, secretaries, sales, all worked on Linux machines. I transferred ownership someone else, and the company still persists.

But I’ve been on Linux desktop only for well over 20 years now, still using Kubuntu or sometimes KDE neon or mint, but I’m “old” and much less interested in experimenting, I need a stable dependable desktop but I love the bling like KDE 3D desktop to show off to windows users to get them over to the dark side, we got cookies.

I once accidentally enabled a firewall on a vm and bricked a server.

Huh. Good peertube instance. I will federate it with mine

I got a Redhat book with boot CD from my cousin (RMS’s lost twin, a total geek) in 1999, later studied Linux and CLI at university and in 2002 built myself a server running SuSe, but it took me 7 more years to fully transition to Linux on all my machines as I still had a box with XP for gaming until then. Every new windows iteration solidifies my aversion to MS products even further and every new version of the kernel, KDE, Wayland, Proton, etc. makes me love the GNU/Linux ecosystem so much more.

Heh, that box and version of Redhat was the first I tried Linux, as well as the same year - 1999 Cost me $110 brand new from a local stationary shop. Which was a lot for a poor student! Sadly didn’t last long as I just couldn’t get everything done in Linux as I could in Windows. And this was despite studying computing at the time.

Oh well 15 years later I tried again (Mint then Arch) and haven’t gone back to Windows since. 🎉

I started with a book about Red Hat 5.x that included a cd with the OS. I generally went back to Windows after a while (except i did run a server on an old pc for quite a while), but tried I again every few years.

I always liked the idea of Linux, but gaming kept making me go back to Windows. Early last year I tried installing EndeavourOS alongside windows and have stuck with it since. My new PC that I got later that same year has never seen windows.

I’m loving it, and don’t foresee a return to Windows.

I ran this as my OS on my PII 166MHz Packard Bell!

I just picked these up today

2005 here I come