Signed up for Ubuntu free CD. Got 10.04 LTS. Was such an improvement from vista on a core 2 duo and 3gb ddr2. Only moved complete to linux in 2019 after years of tinkering with couple RPis and getting the hang of using linux.

Crostini (The Chromebook Linux solution)

Emacs.

No really, it was like 1989 and I had to learn Unix systems for classes, and this white haired Emacs advocate convinced me to try it.

I've been exclusively on open source since at least 22 years now, but the one thing I always use to lure people to Linux is the bling, then they stay for the awesomeness.

KDE used to have awesome bling which I regularly used for that but lately they've been taking more and more of it away. Now event the 3D desktop is gone and it's mostly just a normal desktop, not really something to lure people with, unfortunately

Android. I grew up with old phones where you chased the new trend but you always lost something or you where limited to what manufacturer’s limited idea. This one has good ring tones. this has amazing camera. This got real games. This one has music buttons. This one has apps(not really apps but back then impressive for a phone)

Updates did not exist what you got in box was what you got. suddenly this device comes out where you could do anything.

I could install real Linux, community supported software and made it better. This was my gateway because why should I accept to pay money when the moment I given you money you moved on and forced me to buy next stuff but forgot the great things you done?

Vim and GCC.

For me ist was FreeCAD. From there to Linux and down the Rabbithole

My buddy’s mom took his pc as punishment for some nonsense. We cobbled together some parts so he could secretly play an online flash game with me. His frames were seconds behind mine. But we installed Ubuntu on it since we couldn’t afford windows in high school. So I learned about Linux.

DDWRT technically came first for me, and m0n0wall, but OpenSolaris is where I really started to use it.

Teeworlds. When I was a kid I searched up "free online multiplayer games on pc" and it actually led me to this Wikipedia article full of open source games. I tried out teeworlds and I was hooked on it and it led me to playing other open source games like cube 2 and open arena. In my head, the term open source meant "free stuff". Searching for open source stuff led me to discovering Linux and trying it though the Wubi installer and eventually moving to it a few years later.

I've used a few open source programs before studying CS without knowing what FOSS was, but the time when I really got into it and started diving deeper is probably after installing Arch Linux

Suse Linux 4.4

Linux and godot

Linux

Fedora Linux, tbh

For me it was probably Gimp and then Linux (specifically mandrake). I'm shocked I havnt seen mention of VLC yet though, as it's another one that gets use every day for me.

Suse in 1999.

First used Linux mint in 2007, was fascinated and frustrated at the same time with why things didnt work like on my windows PC, I now have a dedicated Linux Laptop (linux mint)

Xournal++

I don't remember exactly anymore, but I guess... Firefox? And then Ubuntu after I got "serious" about it.

I had used plenty of open source products in the past, but the first one I truly learned the "why it's important" is home assistant. Seeing the strong community and reading more about open source projects and why it's to everyone's benefit.

We can make a far superior, safer, and community first product.

WWIV

Red Hat 6 on the front of a magazine in 2000 which was an interesting curiosity, and then a Fedora Core 2 live disc my university lecturer was handing out in 2004.

Wow. I honestly can’t tell. I think it was ChromOS? Indirectly of course.

Years and years ago, I was really frustrated with windows on my tiny laptop, and I wanted something different. And I loved ChromeOS back then, but I couldn’t afford a Chromebook, and I was looking for something that had a similar interface.

So I looked online, and people were recommending Linux, but I already knew of Linux, as I had a terrible experience with Ubuntu a while before (it was using Unity, to give you a timeframe). But eventually, I found something, it was a post on Reddit by someone looking for something like me, something that would look like what chromous looked like at the time, that was as simple, and one of the best suggestion there was a distribution by the name of “SolusOS”, Specifically, the Budgie variant.

So, I installed it on my little laptop. I fell in love with it, the whole thing, the desktop, the project, Linux as a whole, And then they just kind of snowballed from there. Solus was my go to distro for years.

Now I’m stuck on a MacBook Air, on Mac OS, for many reasons, and I want something new. But even before that, when I had to give up on that laptop and Solus for various reasons, I used many others distros. And I really loved some. But I still miss my tiny laptop and Solus on it…

I miss this simple joy of just using my machine and it just working. I feel like, every piece of tech that is in my life, right now, to try and simplify it, to help me do things, is only making my life worse, and bothering me with stupid stuff at every turn…

Or maybe it’s because I just grew up, I became an adult, lots of things happened in my life, and I just miss how simpler things used to feel back then, maybe I just reflect that in my technology. I don’t know. But I miss it… a lot.

It started with Fedora for me, then Firefox but OpenOffice was the first that made me think "hey, that's good for everyone, not just geeks like me, I gotta show it to my friends and clients"

Oh god, it must be from the 80s-90s, I'd say BSD, it was incredible to have sources at the time. I remember it was BSD4.3