nixCraft 🐧When did you join the cult of #Linux?
I started in 1994 ;)
Esin!!!@nixCraft 2021, baby
Riku Mattila 
Harald Hannelius 
neo ! 🩷💜💙@nixCraft 2017 :3
Alon@neolibrarian @nixCraft same 2017.
At first, I didn't know the OS was called Linux.
Erin Nivelet@nixCraft
2000 with a mandrake 7.2 :)
2000 with a mandrake 7.2 :)
Luís Silva
André van Schoubroeck@erin
Same... it came with a computer magazine back in the days. A time before I had internet at home.
Same... it came with a computer magazine back in the days. A time before I had internet at home.
深海墨客（浮緲鎮長）
Jason Novinger
@nixCraft first touched in 1998, switched full-time in 2005.
__Knut_@nixCraft I first came into contact with Coherent around 1992 during my studies (1990). After that came openSUSE 1.0.9 and then I got stuck with Windows.
Stephen Bannasch (316 ppm)@nixCraft 1994 also. Bought the Slackware book at the MIT bookstore and set up the server with the included cdrom. A week later we had a domain name (concord.org) and a dedicated 56kbps line to TIAC, a local isp.
Milan Zimmermann@nixCraft I am a professional software developer. The KDE desktop beta was released on 20th October 1997. October and November 1997 were the months I started using Linux as the sole operating desktop system for all development.
I never returned or switched to any other OS. But I jumped distros a few times, and tested lots of them along the way.
Magitian@nixCraft the newest to Linux so far in this list, 2022
R. L. Dane 
Chris 
@nixCraft 2019. i installed mint xfce thinking "i'll give linux another go, just have a look, dip my toes in" and within a week i was daily driving it.
Mark@nixCraft ~2013AD
Lucas Janin 🇨🇦🇫🇷
Akhmad Fathonih@nixCraft when Knoppix Live CD was out. I came for Red hat. Stayed for Debian.
Koko San@nixCraft 1992, before kernel 1.0 released.
Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.@nixCraft I tried in '99, but went back to Win NT in '00.
The conversion finally stuck with an install of Gentoo 2004.3, and some help from a couple of more established users. The installation I am writing this from was Debian installed in 2007-11 via debootstrap from that Gentoo installation.
Baillehache Pascal@nixCraft 1995 I guess.
Francehelder 
🇧🇷@nixCraft since 2016, i only use Linux on my machine.
Scribe@nixCraft 2022, though I was considering switching to Linux as far back as 2011
Paul Buetow@nixCraft I started with the release of SuSE Linux 5.3 ... I don't remember the year, though. But I could look it up...
Karna
Shell 
@nixCraft 2022 w/ Fedora 38
MrC@nixCraft It must've been 1993. A friend sent me the first few floppy disks of Slackware over UUCP.
I played with it but didn't install it.
I'm late 93 or early 94 I started working at an ISP and my workstation was a Linux PC connected to a serial aggregator using SLIP.
Draken BlackKnight@nixCraft
2009. I started on Linux because I was part of the root community on XDA, still trying to get JesusFreke's ROMs working on my Dream. Saw how user friendly the Terminal was and I've been using both it and Windon't for the next 15 years, finally abandoning Windon't in July after their perfect storm (Crowdstrike happened maybe a week or two after I abandoned Windon't).
2009. I started on Linux because I was part of the root community on XDA, still trying to get JesusFreke's ROMs working on my Dream. Saw how user friendly the Terminal was and I've been using both it and Windon't for the next 15 years, finally abandoning Windon't in July after their perfect storm (Crowdstrike happened maybe a week or two after I abandoned Windon't).
furzegulo@nixCraft around 2004 if i remember correctly
post-punkedI am 5-6 years a Linux user, prefer Ubuntu-base for user-oriented standardization though not a fan of Snap, bloat, or Ubuntu gui package managers.
I dropped my Windows 7 netbook & was denied access to manufacturer recovery media. The way it works is a factory reset demanded booting into Windows which would not start. Eventually I figured out how to use Linux to trick Windows into booting the recovery partition.
Now regularly Linux is a USB boot & Windows is no attached media.
Roadskater, Ph.D.@nixCraft A machine that actually ran something called Linux, 2013.
But something that looked like Unix? I think that was 1990.
Spent a lot of time on AIX during those years.
arctax 🫑
Alan Hicks@nixCraft my first experience was with Minix in the mid 90s, we were a Microsoft organisation. It was 2000 before I started working with FreeBSD, the rest is history.
filid
DougMerritt (log😅 = 💧log😄)@nixCraft
Circa 1993 with Linux kernel version 0.99 -- I waited until the beta release of the SCSI driver was available.
Circa 1993 with Linux kernel version 0.99 -- I waited until the beta release of the SCSI driver was available.
WestSeattleBill@nixCraft 1995. I *think* it might have been a Trans-Ameritech CD? (picture credit: Internet Archive)
squalouJenkins
Rob E.@nixCraft I don’t recall the year exactly, but was around the jump from 1.3 to 2.0
Bob Collins
Jan Antoš@nixCraft I am would declare it with RedHat 5.0 (1997), well I did experimente possibly couple years earlier, but this was milestone when it becomes main OS for me.
suquamish@nixCraft I'm going to have to say 1994 also, but I can't really say for sure.
My first distro was Yggdrasil, but I quickly jumped onto this new upstart called Slackware.
I'm never an early adopter [when it comes to linux distros], so I'll have to concede that I didn't make the 1993 release of Slackware.
skribe 🇺🇦 
циклимир@nixCraft 2004 with Slackware 9.x or 10.x
Elyse M Grasso@nixCraft I was trained in C and UNIX internals at AT&T in 1985. I followed Linux on line from the first announcement, but I think my first PC running it came later. That was a long time ago and I lost all my records in a house fire...
Tijgertje1987@nixCraft I was 8, so *thinks* 1995.
Now I feel old….
Now I feel old….
Arkadiusz Sikorski@nixCraft From ~1998 to the present day. So from the first access to the internet, with a speed of 28Kbps-32Kbps...
wrosecrans@nixCraft 2063. But then I set a sysctl that made my computer too fast, and now I am in 2024.
avarez@nixCraft 1995 Slackware
rwdf@nixCraft Not sure, but in an attempt at finding out I found my old account at linuxquestions.org with some reference to installing Gentoo on a ThinkPad in 2009.
I recall running a Slackware install on it some years before that. 🤷
I recall running a Slackware install on it some years before that. 🤷
Enjoying Kink@nixCraft 1997 first tries. Didn't work for my use cases back then, so stopped after about a year, but 2022 was the return and all Microsoft does at the moment makes me more happy that I did.
Shaaf@nixCraft 2000. Starting with the awesome Mandrake
Jason Tubnor 🇦🇺@nixCraft Dabbled in 94, used frequently 96-2000 then saw the light and switched to OpenBSD in 2000 with FreeBSD following soon after. It has stayed that way since
Alma@nixCraft 2020, when I tried to learn webdev and that course asked me to install Linux (especially Ubuntu and its flavor). Xubuntu was my first Linux OS ever and I felt like "wow Linux is cool". At that time, I wasn't fully into Linux (still used Windows) until recently I installed Debian in my PC and now I'm full-time Linux user 😄.
Jacco van Schaik@nixCraft Whenever it was that X11 became usable. Before kernel 1.0, I'm pretty sure. First half of the 1990s at any rate.
Nitbuntu ✅@nixCraft I think around 2008 with PCLinuxOS, followed by Ubuntu 8.04.
Django@nixCraft I have to think about that a little longer. That must have been back then™, when our cave guardian was our TRex. But was it before the meteorite impact caused this climate change or after? I just can't remember exactly when that was, it was too long ago!
Peter Sefton 🇪🇺🇺🇦@nixCraft Mainlining Ubuntu since 2006
Martin G@nixCraft 1998 (+/- 1)
Ralph Crützen