The [Main] 'Why did YOU choose Linux?' Thread


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Thread: The [Main] 'Why did YOU choose Linux?' Thread

  1. #1
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    Lightbulb The 'Why did YOU choose Linux?' Thread

    This is the ONLY 'Why did you choose Linux?' on the forum now. Post here the myriad of reasons why you chose Linux. Whether it was to be 1337, licencing, or whatever reason, (cough)Windows sucks(/cough) share why here!

    This is a popular topic and in the interest of providing info as clearly as possible on the topic we think one cetral thread is a good idea. So, all new threads that should have been posted in this thread will be locked from now on.

  2. #2
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    I use Linux to provide me with a reason to idle in #justlinux and annoy ions.

  3. #3
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  4. #4
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    School

    I chose Linux because I was going to need to start using it for a course at college. Plus we were going to need to use Unix for some other courses and I figured I could just do the work at home on a Linux box, then copy it over to the university server to turn it in. After I graduated I continued using Linux because at my job we do a lot of software development under Linux and I figured it was a good thing to be able to put on a resume. After using for a while I really got into and would use it now just have something to play with on my various old computers even if I had no work/school use for it.
    "After all you've seen, after all the evidence, why can't you believe?"

    IBM Thinkpad T21
    750 Mhz P3, 128 MB PC100 RAM, CD-ROM, 10 GB IDE HDD
    Ubuntu 9.04 Minimal

  5. #5
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    i decided to start playin with linux cause im just plain sick & tired of bein sick & tired od winblows security issues and havin to reformat or restore or research what the newest patches might fix or unfix as the is most of the time.
    plus it looks really cool too LOL

    onry

  6. #6
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    This is my main "I chose linux after finding out about Palladium" post.

    or "Next Generation Trusted Computing Platform" or "Bill's Cute Kittens and Baby Duck Computing Project" or whatever the hell they call it this week.

    These days it seems like Palladium may have blown over like that metric system scare in the late seventies. Now I mostly run Linux because I prefer the Gnome desktop, to XP, which is one uglyass desktop. Because not paying for Windows makes me feel guilty, because paying for Windows makes me feel guilty, because I hate adware, because I can't afford a mac-- and, because, as all my good friends in here know, it's a lot faster and more efficient to sort my porno files at the command line!
    Last edited by blackbelt_jones; 04-12-2005 at 11:33 AM.

  7. #7
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    I chose Linux because

    [list=a][*]I needed it for computer science at my university - doing my homework in Windows was a pain.[*]Because it let's me install only the software I want and not because somebody else thinks it's good for me.[*]Because I was sick of viruses and didn't wanna reinstall my system and all apps every six months.[*]Because I wanted to learn more about computers.[*]Because I won't participate in Microsoft's Palladium and NGSCB craze. (Ross Anderson's TCPA FAQ) [*]Because free human being need free computers.[/list=a]

    "What can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence."

    Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)

  8. #8
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    Well, way back before owning my first computer, an Atari 800. My job at the time was in maintaining satellite communications equipment for the Air Force.

    So I was exposed to IBM 360 and 370s, I didn't work on them. Just concerned about the data path between them and my equipment.

    The equipment I was responsible for had computers like an HP 2114 (8K core memory), a Varian 77 (1MB ram), a rack of equipment called Digital Ranging Equipment which was for all intent and purposes a hardwired computer, embedded Motorola 68K processors (assembly code). That's just a few of the things I was exposed to. And for a while I was the sysadmin for an AT&T 3B2 (SVR4).

    So when I did end up with a "real PC" it had Win 3.11. The OS evolved up to Win2K. The machine was never really used for much other than games and later internet usage.

    I eventually got tired of the constantly needed reboots when installing software and just to clear it's brains out. Got tired of the system freezes. It seems like anytime I wanted to do something new, it would cost bucks just to get the software. I also did not like the idea of giving someone my money and they then use me for free debugging.

    But the main reason for switching to Linux is the better community spirit of open source and what it stands for. I like the idea of openness and the sharing of knowledge. All the other reasons like security and stability it offers flow from the communities spirit.

  9. #9
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    I started coding in Python and was complaining to a friend that Winblows made testing software a pain in the butt and I was considering moving on to a different language. He talked me into trying FreeBSD. Although I liked FreeBSD (still use it on servers today), I started exploring other *nix distros. I found SuSE (8.1 then) and started coding like a madman. Under the Windowmaker desktop using rxvt, I'd found nearly the perfect development environment.

    Still today, developing in SuSE (9.2 Pro now) and Slackware (10.0/.1) running XFCE and still coding away in Python. No viruses yet, no break-ins yet, no adware yet, no spyware yet, if it wasn't for playing a handful of games, I'd go ahead and reclaim my windows partition for more space for linux.

  10. #10
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    I actually started because of a friend of mine (whom also frequents this site.. MorphiusFaydal... you #jl regulars know him :P).. because I wanted to try something different. I had worked with windows all the way back to 3.1 (I was lucky enough to have a computer when I was really young).. It was old enough to have a functional 5.25" floppy drive. I don't remember much about it, except that I used to play 'Roger Rabbit teaches typing" on it all the time.

    I believe that's where my love of computers came from. When i was young, i was constantly bored with things, because I'd see it, play with it, understand it, and grow bored. But even with windows, as monopolized as it is, held ever-changing interest with me.

    I used windows up until the fall of last year, when I met Morphius. I had become quite the windows geek (although not too much so, because i had no one else to share my enthusiam with), and was happily using a pirated XP Pro. I messed something up.. i don't remember what, and I asked Morphius for help. We got to talking, and he told me about Slackware.

    I was intrigued, but not much, because I was already happy with windows.. I had gotten it to the point where I could do most everything I wanted to with it... but I tried it out. I resized my partitions, and installed slackware. I had him on the phone the whole time, walking me through it step by step. And when something broke, i'd call him and ask him what was wrong. I felt like all those generic computer users i'd laughed at over the years. It was amazing. I was actually trying to understand something that seemed impossible.

    And I gave up on it. I went back to using windows for a month or so... and then decided I'd take another look at it. This went on for a few months... booting into slackware to mess with it and see what was up. And then I broke windows, and had to run solely in slackware. Oh man, was I in some deep crap. I couldn't get windows to work again (and I didn't want to reinstall and lose all my data), so I had to learn how to use linux.

    So i did.

    I switched back and forth for the next year or so, whenever I would break one of the OSes, i'd install the other one. Until about two months ago, windows stopped booting completely. I guess my hard drives got tired of booting windows for a week, and then linux for a week. In any case, I still haven't been able to get windows to boot, so I've been using gentoo exclusively for almost three months now. And I'm happy with it. I'm almost near the end of 'Rebel Code', which is a book about the development of GNU/Linux and open source. It's reinforced all the things I love about linux.
    -----------------------
    "I wouldn't say there are no stable character attributes in a person
    that contribute to moral or immoral behavior, but they are far
    outweighed by where the person is, at what time, and with whom."
    -Lee Ross, coauthor of "The Person and the Situation: Perspectives
    of Social Psychology"

    Registered Linux user number 332965

  11. #11
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    linux chose me

  12. #12
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    it was way WAY back in 2002 with my pentium II 600. it was originally a packard bell (yeah, i know) and i had windows 98 working on it. to tell you the truth, i was pretty happy with it until one day it just plumb stopped working. I tried using the packard bell recovery disk, but it didn't work because i had modified the machine so much, the recovery disk wouldn't recognize the machine as the same packard bell machine.

    i was financially destitute at the time, so the prospect of having to buy a windows cd crushed my spirit. but i had hear of linux before, and i was curious. so, off i went to bestbuy (TM) to purchase a red hat 7.0. i tried making it work, but i couldn't even get it to install. angry as sin for spending $90 on software that wouldn't work, i went back to best buy and bought mandrake 8.2 for $60. it installed, but it didn't work very well. also, since i had NO idea what i was doing, i quit using it that same day. i rationalized that, since i had already spend $150 of worth of software, i figured i'de just go ahead and spend $50 more and just buy windows 98. so that's what i did, and it worked for a long time after that; but i kept my mandrake installation and played with it more and more often. eventually, my comfort with it grew even though it performed very poorly.

    Then came 2004 and i bought myself a brand spanking new dell (TM) laptop. i install mandrake 9.2 and the install was flawless (except for my hyperthreading, wireless nic, and video card).

    from then on, mandrake and i have been in an illicit love affair that will last through the ages. sure.... i explored myself with some other floozies like ubuntu, debian, slack and gentoo; but mandrake is the lady i keep on coming back to.

  13. #13
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    i discovered about linux by pure coincidence, a magasine+CD with a cool penguin on it, decided it was worth trying (didn't even now what it was). and so i installed my first distro, slackware 7.0.

    it was hard to figure out how things worked, and i liked the way you'd have to read a bunch of howtos just to find out that some piece of hardware won't work.i usually learnt things the hard way, breaking and reinstalling from scratch.

    and what is keeping me with gnu/linux, is the huge amount of knowledge you gain when when dealing with it daily.

  14. #14
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    Originally posted by cudaman73
    I actually started because of a friend of mine (whom also frequents this site.. MorphiusFaydal... you #jl regulars know him :P).. because I wanted to try something different. I had worked with windows all the way back to 3.1 (I was lucky enough to have a computer when I was really young).. It was old enough to have a functional 5.25" floppy drive. I don't remember much about it, except that I used to play 'Roger Rabbit teaches typing" on it all the time.

    I believe that's where my love of computers came from. When i was young, i was constantly bored with things, because I'd see it, play with it, understand it, and grow bored. But even with windows, as monopolized as it is, held ever-changing interest with me.

    I used windows up until the fall of last year, when I met Morphius. I had become quite the windows geek (although not too much so, because i had no one else to share my enthusiam with), and was happily using a pirated XP Pro. I messed something up.. i don't remember what, and I asked Morphius for help. We got to talking, and he told me about Slackware.

    I was intrigued, but not much, because I was already happy with windows.. I had gotten it to the point where I could do most everything I wanted to with it... but I tried it out. I resized my partitions, and installed slackware. I had him on the phone the whole time, walking me through it step by step. And when something broke, i'd call him and ask him what was wrong. I felt like all those generic computer users i'd laughed at over the years. It was amazing. I was actually trying to understand something that seemed impossible.

    And I gave up on it. I went back to using windows for a month or so... and then decided I'd take another look at it. This went on for a few months... booting into slackware to mess with it and see what was up. And then I broke windows, and had to run solely in slackware. Oh man, was I in some deep crap. I couldn't get windows to work again (and I didn't want to reinstall and lose all my data), so I had to learn how to use linux.

    So i did.

    I switched back and forth for the next year or so, whenever I would break one of the OSes, i'd install the other one. Until about two months ago, windows stopped booting completely. I guess my hard drives got tired of booting windows for a week, and then linux for a week. In any case, I still haven't been able to get windows to boot, so I've been using gentoo exclusively for almost three months now. And I'm happy with it. I'm almost near the end of 'Rebel Code', which is a book about the development of GNU/Linux and open source. It's reinforced all the things I love about linux.
    oh man... i remember those times...

    Lets see.... i first started using Linux when i decided that i wanted an OS that wouldnt crash all the time... of course, i was still labouring under the delusion that linux was pretty much windows that didnt crash... then i started looking around.. and i went and grabbed mandrake 9.1-rc2.. then used that for a few days.. and then god RedHat 9.. used that... then i discovered Slackware 9... i was in love...

    but.. i was on an ACX-100 based wireless card.. so if i wanted internet... i needed windows.... which sucked..

    i tryed to run slack and gentoo through VMWare (i was curious about gentoo). that kinda worked... but it was slow, and i couldnt do my measly little bit of gaming...

    Then i got my DWL-810+ box.. Ethernet-to-Wireless adaptor... so i can just plug it in, and my computer uses my onboard ethernet, and the box handles all the wireless stuff....

    So i installed gentoo.

    I loved it.

    And i still love it.

    And.. in a cruel twist of fate.. my windows hard drive failed.. which was also home to /mnt/media...

    so now i have to make everything work in gentoo (not that hard) but losing my media drive... thats just painful....

    Still... I want 'Rebel Code' back, i'm feeling the itch to read it again heh.. take your time

    yeah.. i know.. i suck
    JustLinux IRC Channel: irc.freenode.net #justlinux

  15. #15
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    Love being able to solve everything on it! Windows keeps you from getting dirty but linux totally lets you dig deep! Even web development is easier from linux , i use screem to create webbies and lets me develop them and see results instantly! Woot! rock on!

    #98 +(5627)- [X]
    <ikkenai> i don't have hard drives. i just keep 30 chinese teenagers in my basement and force them to memorize numbers
    Courtesy of bash.org

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