I am just very curious what peoples stories are. And if you are not using Linux what is holding you back?
No judgement of any kind, just pure curiosity.
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I started with Android, of all things (first android phone in the froyo/gingerbread era, iirc). Got really interest in modding so I signed up for XDA. It was pretty cool while it lasted, and it introduced me to the world of GPL and open source stuff. Still didn’t install Linux.
After a few years, my now ex-company started using Ubuntu and it worked pretty well for such shitty PCs, so I got more interested in Linux. At home, I got interested in building kernels, so I started reading up more about it. Finally installed Virtualbox and installed Mint and built my first Android kernel from source. Stuck with Mint for a few years.
Got interested in Arch but was intimidated, so I went and installed EOS on my laptop. Learned more about Linux (Still using EOS there now) Kept using VMs for hobbies and tried a lot of distros.
Saw iusearchlinux.fyi in lemmy and it called out my name. As an asshole whose whole life revolves around bragging about using arch, i signed up for this instance. 😎
I didn’t even think of Android, I guess technically correct is the best kind of correct :D I been using it since Dount, but never did anything more fancy than rooting and running cyanogen/lineage.
EOS? I never heard of it, is it just EndeavourOS shortened? At least it seems to make sense in context. Sorry if this is a bit of a dumb question.
Since you said you used a lot of distros, is there any you would recommend to try/stay the hell away from?
Yep, its quite handy when your username tells everyone automatically so you don’t have to use your macro (that I assume every arch user has) to tell everyone.
Yeah. Got hooked on cyanogenmod. It was fun specially when Xposed was introduced later on. I don’t follow the phone scene much nowadays, though.
Yeah, it’s Endeavour OS. It’s pretty lengthy and I’m lazy so EOS it is. Lol.
I’ve tried Puppy, various Ubuntus (can’t remember which, but mostly the lighter ones and the main distros), Debian, OpenSUSE, Pop, Fedora, Mint, most of the popular ones, etc - mainly looking for something for a daily driver on my laptop but still ended up on EOS. Most of them stayed just a few days, though, so I can’t really give you any comprehensive answers. Although I’ve had trouble with OpenSUSE the most iirc. No idea why - might just be me. Or is it zypper? 🤔 Idk, pacman just works for me (and apt, of course). RN I’m trying out Nix OS on my VM. It’s actually pretty cool, although I’m still not familiar with everything.
And yes, an arch users let’s everyone know they use arch.
I wish I could install it still, was so good.
Yea, I literally couldn’t spell the name if I wanted to, I gotta look it up and copy paste it so can’t blame you for just going with EOS :D
That is a lot of them :o You are the 2nd one who mentioned issues with OpenSuse in this thread, do chances are its not you.
I use Arch btw.
i tried installing windows XP on my computer, and it wanted me to activate it? wtf? so i said F that. it was like 2003 or so and it was redhat 7.3 that i bought at circuit city or somewhere
Reasonable reaction. Why pay for an OS when you can get a better one for free :D
Loaded up 40something diskettes of Slackware, on a ship anchor of a PC in an effort to learn a Geographic Information System back in 1897, er I mean 1997. Pulled out chunks of hair trying to pick swap file sizes. Was dazed by /, /boot, /usr, /var,. Never got the GIS working. Sang magical incantations to bosses about how Linux would smite their god MSFT. And they laughed. You know the rest.
1997, wow 26 years of experience, your experience is as old as me!
It was a low-spec laptop I was gifted as a teen. To give you an idea:
- 32 GB soldered-in SSD
- 4 GB RAM
- dual-core celeron
It came with Windows 10, and on day 1 it said I had low storage 💀. The huge bottle-neck for me was the un-upgradeable storage for sure, because a lot of programs I wanted to install (i.e. for art/music/programming) wanted to live on the C: drive rather than on my usb. And in general it was atrocious to use.
I got introduced to Linux from the Godot Engine discord meme channel of all places. Lots of Linux users seemed to live there, so I thought maybe I ought to learn Linux to understand the memes 🤣 (and escape my insanity)
I still was very unsure about wiping Windows in case something broke or still had info on there (i think i still do in my browser). So if not wipe the OS, I could have ran Linux off my USB, but it stuck out a couple inches so I didn’t wanna risk it unplugging 🤣. But my buddy suggested an idea to use the small MicroSD slot on the side. I was able to get one (128GB) for my birthday and decided to go with Mint. Things mostly just worked but there was some strangeness cause it was a persistent live usb install. But still so much better than Windows
This was about 2.5 years ago now. And don’t worry, I saved up to build a desktop PC, running Arch, of course ;)
Only 32 GB of storage is insanely low, what the hell. They shouldn’t even be allowed to make laptops like that unless you are able to replace it…
I would never think about running something of a MicroSD, good thinking on your buddys part!
I hope the new desktop has decent storage now :D
I know!! I think the idea with those types of laptops were that most people just needed a laptop to browse the internet and could live off of web apps / the cloud if needed. But still, I agree, no computer should have their storage soldered in. In the end the silver lining to it all was it pushed me to try out Linux
Yupppp. I think these days the read-writes on the SD card are a little too slow now, but it definitely served it’s purpose. It worked great because it was flush with the frame of the laptop, and didn’t require any compromises at the time. Awww thanks 🙂
In the desktop I got a 1tb nvme ssd, I haven’t even used half of the storage yet and there’s plenty of room for upgrading 🤣
I had a coworker mention his RetroPie setup. I followed suit and built one, but quickly realized that the system under the hood was pretty cool!
A few months later, I built a PC on a budget. In avoidance of purchasing a Windows key, I threw Pop!_OS on it instead based on the RetroPie experience. Greatest decision I could have made!
Edit: this was about 3 years ago
Huh, I didn’t except people to have started with Pis at all when I made the post at all but now you are the 2nd person who mentioned it. But it does actually make complete sense. Thank you for sharing!
I’ve got a few Pi’s laying around, and I always find uses for them. So darn useful!
Mine is sadly just lying around and collecting dust for years already:( But it is more of a time issue than an use issue as I would definitely like to put a pihole on it.
I guess I will start.People beat me to it.The year is 2015 and the GPU drivers for my laptop decided to stop working out of nowhere. No matter how much I screwed with them I couldn’t get them working. So even if my only experience with Linux at that point was a little bit of screwing around in VMs I decided to install Mint. Guess what? Drivers worked! (AMD ones then actually stopped working as well somewhere around 2018? Third party ones still work to this day). Man gaming back then on Linux was rough, but hey, my laptop worked so I didn’t care and my desktop was still running Windows 7 anyways.
Then in 2019 I build my fancy new PC, get everything set up, installed Windows 7 … USB ports don’t work, no drivers exist for them for Windows 7 at all…shit… There was no chance I was going to install Windows 10 on it so since Linux served me well for 4 years on my laptop I decided to just screw it and install Mint there too. Mint turned into Manjaro (and recently Arch on laptop), Proton became a thing and all is good in life and I wouldn’t want to have it any other way.
I did eventually install a LTSC version of Windows 10 on a separate SSD that I keep around for emergencies that gets booted into on average every 3-6 months.
What a horrible windows experience. Doesn’t surprise me lol
It is windows, of course is horrible :D
My first computer was a Samsung N150 Netbook (Intel Atom N450 1,6GHz, 1GB RAM, Intel 3150 with Win 7 Starter which i bought instead of a smartphone in primary school. I refunded the smartphone i bought since it was very bad. Windows 7 Starter sucked on this netbook and you couldn’t even change the background image without changing some registry entries. Not sure where I got the idea to install Linux but I decided to install Ubuntu on it (i think it was ubuntu first and later lubuntu like lubuntu 8.10) and i had a much better experience than with windows. I also hosted a mincraft server on this laptop and played at the same time with almost zero fps and my friends complaint about the server lagging
I still own a pink N150 somewhere. Maybe I should put Arch on it hmmmmm
I gave mine to my sister but I really liked it.
I had a love hate relationship with it. On one had it was mine and I could do whatever I wanted with it, on the other hand the thing couldn’t even handle playing 720p Youtube videos. Mine was running win7 ultimate tho, would probably a lot nicer with Linux on it.
I installed 2gb ram and this html5 video plugin and I used 480p probably
I got a laptop with windows 11 pre-installed. Everything I wanted to change was either impossible or required a bullshit workaround. Installed Linux to save me the trouble.
Oh god, I helped my dad setup Windows 11 on his new laptop last month. I can deal with Windows 7 and 10, but 11? Holy shit that thing is absolutely horrible. I hope I never have the displeasure to see it ever again in my life.
My first installation was in around 2006 when I bought my own computer, but I heard abou Linux from my middle school IT teacher. First distro was mandriva, but I jumped from one to another on weekly basis. I think that first Ubuntu I tried was feisty fawn. I remember as well the ubuntu netbook remix as well. Why? Dont remember. Probably curiosity , being tired of bimbows.
OMG I was trying to remember the Ubuntu distro name of the first version I tried, and I think it was feisty fawn! Yeah! Thanks for jogging my memory.
I did pull it up from the ubuntu version list :D
It was a gradual process. It somehow started with Raspberry Pis because there were some laying around and I wanted to use them as a server for something. Later privacy and my increasing repulsion for windows played a role. It also helped that I stopped
having friendsplaying online games with friends, very convinient, so I had not to use windows for that either. Now I just love using it. I can do whatever I want and the system does only what I want. And foss is great.@MouseWithBeer you didn’t tell us your story
I was typing it up and then work called and had to go AFK for a bit. I posed it now :)
Thank you for sharing yours! Pis are great little things.
I had not so great experiences with Pis. They would drop USB devices every few dozen hours. Might be fixed with updates or newer Pis
I only owned Pi 4 Model Bs and I have never had any issues, but I also never really left USB devices in so I can’t really say.
What do you guys do with your PIs? I almost got one to use as a pihole server but thought it’d be a waste of money if that’s all I’m gonna do with it (running standalone piholes on my desktop and laptop now). Still interested if there’s anything I can use them for. 😅
I used them for pihole & unbound, qbittorrent, local http server and kiwix. I would still use one because they use like 5W max, but I had issues and running all these things on bare-metal is a pain. Now I run all my stuff (now adguard instead of pihole) on a small computer < 20W in proxmox. It sadly is totally worth using more power for this.
I use one as a Pi-hole server. It is amazing realizing how many ads are on the internet now. Especially good for blocking for Android.
Husband uses a Pi for his model rockets - getting telemetry data. We have previously used it as a microcontroller for a homebrew homebrewing cooler.
Yeah. Ads are terrible now. I’m glad for stuff like ublock and pihole. The net would be painful to browse without them.
Model rockets sounds awesome, ngl. I don’t think I have the brainpower for that hobby, though. Lmao.
I just used it for a project for college. I wanna put a pihole on it as well (mainly for phone), just never got around to it years later. I gave my spare to my boyfriend tho and he is using it as a media server.
he is using it as a media server.
For some reason this did not occur to me. 🤦♂️
I need to get my brain checked.
I got my first laptop a bit over 10 years ago with windows 7 on it. Used that for a while, but found myself getting interested in the dark web as an edgy teenager (I wasn’t really edgy, just a nerd with diverse interests) and found my way to tails.
I played around with that for some time, which happened to also be the time that windows 8 came out. Used that for about a week, decided to wipe my windows completely and install mint. Within a year I switched to arch and I guess the rest is history. I’m actually on Manjaro now and really enjoying it!
If I may ask, what made you go from Arch to Manjaro? Asking because I am currently doing the Manjaro to Arch switch.
I recently have gone from Manjaro to EndeavourOS myself within the past year or so. For me it was similar to the reason I switch from Ubuntu spins to Manjaro in the first place. I want new software ASAP. Manjaro was holding back KDE 5.25.5 with the rounded corner fix for quite a while even from the other channels. I also would run into issues where the kernels would no longer be supported but having them on my system caused problems with updates. Manjaro’s various kernels actually saved me a few times, but not sure what the best way to deal with this is while keeping support for additional kernels, but Arch only has 3 available at any time so they’re always supported. I still like Manjaro, and it’s the distro I would recommend to anyone who has anything but the most basic computing needs.
Yea, things on Manjaro take absolutely too long sometimes. I had problems with Discord all the time which literally won’t run on an old version and Manjaro being nope, no update for you. I switched to unstable branch just to not have to constantly deal with it.
I have migrated my laptop to EOS already, but I still have a VM with Manjaro I’m leaning on ATM. It would just be a few hours of effort to migrate but I will wait until I am more ready for that at a later date.
I think I wanted a slightly better packaged experience that required less work to maintain.
During covid I had been mostly using windows again on an external drive because it just worked better for MS Teams, which was sorta a necessity for me at the time. Once things opened back up and my need for MS stuff diminished, I decided to do a reset of my Linux drive and switch to manjaro. I didn’t have the patience or time to re-set up my arch environment, and wanted something new. So manjaro was an obvious choice.
I’m an academic and I used to be able to spare the time and effort to play with my os, tinker, and fix things when they break. But now I’m writing my thesis and I just need my machine to work with little hassle.
Makes total sense, thank you for your answer!
Best of luck with your thesis :)
No worries! And thanks!
lost my xp product code and i had built a new pc, was stoked to try out RAID0. So i bought vista at walmart only to find out i picked up the upgrade version and not the base install, so i couldn’t activate it without an xp code. Got exposed to linux during my programming class, all assignments had to compile on the school’s server. After learning that linux was free and getting tired of reinstalling vista every 30 days (it got pretty manageable after i learned how to slipstream the installer but i was so done) i made a Ubuntu usb and fell all the way down the rabbit hole. I can still hear the ubuntu startup music and then the sudden BADADONK notification sounds. Wine was good enough to run my DOTA launcher (WC3) and that was all i really cared about back then. Believe it or not ubuntu was awesome back in those days. They did some 100 papercuts program focused on fixing annoying things, suddenly usability went through the roof, things just started working with less hastle. Eventually i distrohopped a bunch, i kept failing to get graphics to work on arch, stuck with fedora for a while, i was rocking intel’s clear linux for a couple years but kept running into stability issues. At some point Mesa decided to be awesome and i had an AMD card and Arch installed with zero problems (I use arch BTW). I moved /home to its own partition so i can distrohop easier but i havent reinstalled an OS since i did that several years ago. Anyway, i like my setup, i’m really set in my ways and have gotten fast and efficient. I think i’ll try Nix.
I moved /home to its own partition so i can distrohop easier but i havent reinstalled an OS since i did that several years ago.
Funny how things work out like that.
Thank you for sharing!
Late 2020. I bought a new laptop with windows 8 installed. Needless to say it sucked and had a lot of problems, in the next day it refused to boot. Then by the power of our holy lord and savior Richard Stallman, I stumbled upon a video made by Linus Tech Tips. (Not the best place to learn about linux but we all gotta start somewhere?). And now after distro hopping twice, I settled on Manjaro.
Guess it kinda depends what you mean by ‘using Linux’. I think the first time I tried it was in 2017, I’d just built my computer and dad’s a Linux user so I’d obviously heard about it before and I was at least somewhat sympathetic to the idea of free software over proprietary software, so I decided to try something out. I went with what seemed to me to be the basic safe option at the time and tried Ubuntu. I didn’t last very long, found things kinda confusing and difficult, and was soon back to Windows, because I really just wanted to game with my new computer.
I think it was maybe the next year that my school decided to require people to have laptops, so I got one and since I knew I was mostly going to be doing basic tasks, I figured I’d give Linux another shot, this time I went with Mint (with cinnamon), which I’d heard was fairly similar to Windows, and it worked quite well for me so I stuck with it. Probably another year after that (2019) I actually decided, honestly largely so I could make my sister stop stealing my PC to game on so much (I knew Fortnite wouldn’t run, while the games I enjoyed would lol), to switch my main desktop to Linux, this time I went with Arch and from then on it’s all been Linux.
Was having driver issues on Windows Vista which led me to go Ubuntu. I’ve been on and off with Linux until recently with Steam and Proton. The work Valve has done to make Windows games work on Linux has been great, and I think it’s trickled down to WINE in general too.
And then I’m on and off again since getting my new PC. Turns out liquid cooling and RGB aren’t the best on Linux right now, especially with the components I’m using, so I’ve kinda stuck on Windows a bit. Maybe I should rev up VMware and handle those there where I can.
The work Valve has done to make Windows games work on Linux has been great,
Yea there is plenty of bad things that can be said about Valve, but I will be forever thankful for what they did for Linux gaming (I know it is not just them and Wine was a thing for a long time, but gaming before and after Proton is like night and day).
