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

[MorphiusFaydal]

I didnt choose Linux, Linux hunted me down and ambushed me behind its vast walls.

not that you're complaining, right?

[tcarradine]

on a dingy monday morning working a helpdesk job for a 350 user windows network i stumbled upon userfriendly and ended up reading the entire four year (at the time) archive in two days...

i guess it just made me curious.

Tim

[Flashes of Sky]

I chose Linux 'cos Tux told me to.

Actually I chose Linux because I was sent a Ubuntu CD as a magizine CD but I didn't get too use it because my old laptop's hard disk was too small. I've only just installed that disk two days ago, since I got a new pc, but I don't regret taking XP off.
I was actually worried that I would hate Linux. Now I laugh at myself for thinking that.

Another factor in the equation to install Linux, having used Windows 95/98 all my life, and keeping them stable, I felt that their was nothing to learn in them.

[rowdy235]

I just wanted to try it and it stuck.... Still run winxp on 1 pc though

[billie]

The reason i use linux is to try something different so far i like it quite a bit.
I have no problems with windows never experienced a crash or virus mainly because i have never used internet explorer only Opera or firefox.
So far i only use linux for internet and email and use windows for everything else i just like windows software more and am more than willing to pay for software that is equal to my experience, gimp is just not working for me i really like the windows photo printing programs.Anyway it's called freedom of choice.
Bill

[pecolapuddin]

i always felt like it was a job to use my pc when i had windows. the security was absolutely horrible. holes everywhere. the most unstable OS i've used. even though i've only used 2 lol :P still i've used it basically all my life and i always felt dirty lol metaphorically like i was doing something i shouldn't be doing. i was constantly trying to change the look and the way it operates but it wasn't doing the trick. i landed on linux and read a little about it. i heard that linspire and suse were more of the easier to convert from m$. so i went with suse and in a few words " I WILL NOT SURRENDER!" lol it's so much fun to figure out problems and learn as i go. i also start ITT Tech in a few days so i'm excited to learn even more about linux. linux linux linuxe lol :P thanks guys
-pecolapuddin

[GmarAppledude]

I second the notion about the use of windows and feeling like being at work. Like I am now!! hee hee I guess I should do something.

[saikee]

I chose Linux because I wanted to see it it could boot XP,
then fellow Linux,
then DOS,
then win9x,
then Win2k,
then Win3.x,
then FreeBSD,
then Solaris,
then Grub itself

Now I haven't got any operating system in the PC that isn't bootable by Grub.

Worst of all, I found out every system can be booted just by a floppy, using the same three lines of Grub command.

Give me a kick every time I hear the Windows users mentioning "dual boot".

[yacc_deno]

i choose linux for many reasons except giving up starcraft

[MorphiusFaydal]

Starcraft and Brood War run beautifully under WINE and/or Cedega.

[yacc_deno]

i prefer to run a pure linux game better.
i tried run starcraft in wine ,it was much slower than native windows.

[MorphiusFaydal]

heh...... i never noticed any slowdowns.....

that old adage, 'your milage may vary' really must apply

[MastaShake57]

I'm not sure what the mean age is around in these forums, but I chose Linux because I LOVED DOS.

Yes, I said it, I loved the pure black and white joy that was DOS. I can do ANYTHING under DOS and Windows 3.11, still true to this day with Windows XP/2003.

I've played around with Linux here and there, until that fateful night of July 2001. I got a call from my THEN boss....

Boss - "Hey, how good are you with Red Hat?"
Me - "I'm O.K. with it, why?"
Boss - "Well, our sister company just got bought out and we're not in compliance..."
Me - "So you want me to...."
Boss - ".... convert our NT 4.0 domain into a Red Hat Linux one"
Me - "Um, sure... I can do that..."
Boss - "Excellent! We need that done by this Friday."
Me - "Cool." (It was friggin' tuesday).

Pfft, YEAH RIGHT. Before that, I have NEVER heard of SAMBA, postfix and the likes, but I wasn't deterred. I had a good buddy of mine help me out, cause he too was linux savvy. Together, not only did we get the domain migrated over, but we re-joined the client PCs into the SAMBA NT domain, re-established the file shares, and for kicks, installed Lotus Domino Server for them. I've got 4 words for you linux junkies out there, R - T - F - M. Ah, those were the days.

Ever since then, linux was it for me. I made it a mission to completely mirror my Windows set up at work which runs Lotus Notes, Microsoft Office and the likes. You'll all be glad to know that Ubuntu runs all that like a champ. My work PC (Windows 2000) is now mostly my MP3 jukebox simply because it has the speakers connected to it.

My distros of choice:
Ubuntu - personal laptop with wireless / Lotus notes / OpenOffice / CiscoVPN
ArchLinux - server desktop for my Asterisk PBX server
FreeBSD - production DNS servers
Slackware - pretty much for everything else!

[A2JC4life]

Well, I'm still working on switching to Linux (if I could ever manage to get online that would be a big step, since internet/email is most of what I do on the computer), but my reason is an extreme distaste for Microsoft. Honestly, I am not particularly unhappy with my software (Win98SE & Office97), but I don't like the company. They're money-hungry and power-hungry and they're after way too much of our information. When hubby's new computer came with XP, and we discovered how it works, that was the last straw. It's constantly connecting to the internet, sending and receiving heaven-only-knows-what. It constantly needs updates. And - here's the biggie - it can't be uninstalled without major technical expertise. Seriously, if you uninstall it, it resurrects itself. We call it a preinstalled virus. When I saw that MS was heading that strongly in that direction, I said forget it. If it takes the rest of my life, I am going to figure out this Linux thing so I can ditch MS.

[graza]

I started using Linux cos:
a) sick of having to contantly re-install Win98
b) my Win98 PC got hit by a virus that corrupted all my files and inserted the words "you are s**t" into them. More like "your OS is s**t"
c) it's much more fun than Windows