[jenna]

Experimented with a knoppix disk a few years ago, but for one reason or another (read: incompetence) never got round to installing anything else. A friend gave me a Ubuntu Dapper disk a while back, and for a while I was running dual boot openSuse 10.2/Ubuntu Dapper. I have since removed Ubuntu from that partition and am planning on installing Debian there instead. When I get around to downloading it, that is. If it's relevant to anyone, I'm an ex-English student, but plan on a dual diploma in systems & networks next year.

Glad to be away from Windows. Hell will freeze over before I go back.

[cousinlucky]

I got instantly addicted to the vast knowledge available on the Internet. However all Microsoft os are like sieves and vulnerable to anything.
Hard drive reformats, over and over and over again beat me into using Linux.
I still know practically nothing about computers or Linux.
What I know is that my hard drive hasn't needed to be reformated ever since I went to using Linux to access the internet.

The bad part is I am developing a " Linux Belly " from being parked in front of my computer screem for ever longer periods of every single day.

Linux has brought me tranquillity. I do not need to know how it works to enjoy using it.

[likwid]

It all started when I got my own first "real" computer in 99, an HP Pavillion 400 MHz with 64 MB RAM and AOL (lol). I was 13. I had been using my uncles' commodore 64 and 386 and 486 previously. Now I thought that people who broke into computer systems, big ones, were obviously the coolest people alive. So I started reading about 'hacking' and spending all my time on the computer. Mostly everything I came across kept mentioning Unix and/or Linux. So I said what the hell is this stuff that you have to use to learn about computer security?? I convinced either my mom or my uncle (forget now) to buy me Linux for Dummies. Didn't read the book which was basically installation instructions and hosed my computer. When I finally got a dual boot going I then had to convince my mom that I needed an external modem. Got that and began using netzero with a nice little hack someone made to get your 'real' password so you could dial up without their software. Now years later I make a living off Linux.

[MikeTbob]

Originally Posted by likwid

IGot that and began using netzero with a nice little hack someone made to get your 'real' password so you could dial up without their software.

Ahhh, the good old days, you didn't even need the Netzero hack, just dial in with Windows and get the password from the network logs. AOL had a "hack" too, thank god I was never desperate enough to use it.

[likwid]

lol yea, AOL sucked shit, it was real big at the time. Every kid I knew used it. Definitely was an awesome time to be into Linux.

[techieMoe]

I got started... wait. I have the sneaky suspicion I've answered this question before at least a couple of times...

Aha! Found them.
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/cof...windows-2.html
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/cof...gnu-linux.html

[Dark_Stang]

I guess I was about... thirteen... Maybe twelve. I found a website that had a live CD. I wanna say damn small linux but... may have been something else. I remember it was running something like fluxbox. I played with a variety of bootable operating systems ranging from Menuet to Knoppix. Then when I finally got my own computer I installed Ubuntu on it. I haven't looked back...

[Walt1135]

Hi, the first time I used a live distro finished my addiction to linux. Before that it was Redhat next suse, then everything I could lay my hands on from magazines. The ability to take a computer that is considered under powered and with the insertion of a PROPER OS, make it perform better than a new state of the art unit, well for me it felt damn good. Now I use Ubuntu to recondition laptops for the elderly and children ( a test run of a 700mhz computer with a 10 year old shows no virus etc. ) works well and seems right.
Thanks for your time.

[the bassinvader]

...not much to tell really.
I'd heard about Linux on my travels through the net fpr a few years but had always had the impression that it was solely for hard core techies, people who knew what they were doing..... not for the likes of me. I finally took the plunge last summer with SuSE10.0. I couldn't get the bloody thing to work at the start but with advice from these forums and investment in new hardware I got it working in December which was especially lucky bcause a month later Windows died....permanently.

Theres nothing like irony to give a story an interesting ending

[bigtomrodney]

I started back with Mandrake 8.x and SUSE 7.2 I think. I played around for a while before switching to Red Hat 9.

I remember playing around with the earlier Knoppix and Morphix discs.

I eventually went back to Mandrake and by version 9.1/9.2 I was using Windows for so little that I switched completely and ditched Windows from my machine. I have used countless LiveCDs and installs on various test boxes. I think I have about 80-90 install discs but at this stage I pretty much just use SUSE. I get my work done, all my hardware works and I run the odd few risky updates but aside from resintalling the nVidia drivers after a kernel or X upgrade it's rock solid and pretty quick.