Yes, im doing le funy Meme. And yes, I am an autist, with some signs towards something adhd adjacent
I first tried Linux Mint when I was 12, eventually changed to Ubuntu when I was 13 or 14 because I saw the Windows 11 copilot button, installed arch at late 14, and got to gentoo when I was 15.
Can anyone beat me to it?
My son’s first computer was Linux. ;) He was still toddling but wanted to hit my computer, so I set up an old one for him.
I was 14 in 1991 I should add. I switched from minix not long after I could get Linux to boot. I think that was actually 1992. Both the computer and Linux weren’t very good back then …
Debian and Mandrake in the late 1990s. And I was already almost three times as old as you were when you started. These days I’m happy with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed for daily use. I tried NixOS but it threatened to break my old brain.
I started using linux with dual boot in June 2024 where I installed Fedora/Fedora immutable kde and bazzite.
Tried GNOME on my brother’s old Laptop but using Extensions for changing one thing(and breaking every update) was annoying I have been using Fedora till I stumbled across CachyOS I switched to Cinnamon around this time from KDE I found kde kinda Buggy (heard it’s Nvidia or smth) and it just felt uncomfortable Around December 2024 Where I used Linux full time (no windows dual boot) this is when I found Cachyos (or arch variants) and Cinnamon comfortable the only problem is that Cinnamon doesn’t have Vrr,HDR and Wayland for me but I use Gamescope if I need vrr and HDRI find cinnamon kind of useless
It just has this beige win 7 look, that is somehow both new and old at the same time. You dont have the Macros and Costumisation of Plasma, but you also dont have the rigidness and tablet-style interface of Gnome. You dont have the ressource friendlyness of xfce. The only thing it has is that it can both render qt and gtk in its own style, but xfce already does that with its very win xp like interface, which both qt and gtk have themes for
It just has this beige win 7 look, that is somehow both new and old at the same time. You dont have the Macros and Costumisation of Plasma, but you also dont have the rigidness and tablet-style interface of Gnome. You dont have the ressource friendlyness of xfce. The only thing it has is that it can both render qt and gtk in its own style, but xfce already does that with its very win xp like interface, which both qt and gtk have themes for
I agree with this kinda but I find Cinnamon more comfortable to use then Xfce but I could use xfce
2005
Fedora Core 5
At some point in 2006, I switched to Ubuntu. Jumped to Debian after Canonical thought it would be cute to send our data to Jeff Bezos and show is ads.
Fuck Canonical.
Been on Debian ever since, except for 1 netbook that I keep using Kali - which I used in the Backtrack days.
Around 2014 I had hacker phase so I’ve installed BackTrack(Kali Linux), ofcourse I didn’t knew a thing about Linux but hey it was a start :D
Since then I had dual boot with Windows until 2020 when Ubuntu 20.04 dropped and Windows never touched my computers again.
I started using Linux before you were born, but i also was 20, so you win😄
Linux didn’t exist until I was 25.
But are we talking earliest age, or length of time using it? I’ve been running Linux on PCs for over 30 years.
Yes, at least seeing a 50yo guy like me. We come from the 8bit world, there was no linux!
Been there! It was Avery different time.
The first program I wrote was in the Logo Turtle Game on an Apple Iie in 4th grade. Did some BASIC programming on the Apple IIe’s building interpreter too.
I use Arduino boards with Atmega, Esp32/8266, and M0 chips on them for embedded projects. These $8 boards have more processing capability then my first desktop computer…
I know it’s just nostalgia, but I sometimes really miss the days when you could memorize the entire memory layout of your computer. You knew that if you poked a value into a memory location, some pixels would flip at a certain place on the screen.
It was nice living in such a small, constrained world.
I still live it. I use some Atmega chips like the attiny85. It only has 256 bytes if RAM and 5 i/o pins to work with. I code in C++ so I have 100% control over memory if I want it.
Someday I’ll find a reason to work with attiny10 chips… There’s almost no resources on it and it’s about the size of a grain of rice!
Man, you make me wish I’d have followed an embedded career. When I first entered the market, embedded was niche and the domain of specialty industries like the MIC. If you cut out companies like Lockheed, building stuff to kill people, the job pool was really small. But there was a window, juuust around the time I moved to management, when you could find embedded jobs. I wish now I’d have taken that fork in the path.
I just finished teaching an Internet of Things class this term. I went strong on the ‘things’ bit of the title. We did all kinds of hardware projects, along with web apis, mqtt, and a tiny bit of clouds services to move data.
It was one of the most fun classes I’ve ever taught. That stuff is great!
when I was 13 or 14 because I saw the Windows 11 copilot button
That button was announced January 2024.
I think the first Linux I installed was probably Ubuntu somewhere around 5.04-6.06, I would have been about 15 at the time.
That cant be true
I remember dual booting Ubuntu, I was on a Win insider build, and the button must have appeared around 2023
Oh, I thought you were talking about the physical keyboard button, apparently the software copilot button appeared around May 2023, about seven months earlier
That sounds way more reasonable
Here’s what I started with. The release of Windows 95 lured me away from Amiga, but as the Amiga was a very customisable environment, I had this for an escape plan :D
In the Amiga days I was ridiculously lucky and bagged a Silicon Graphics Indy system for pennies, so Unix was no stranger at this point.
Cool, no, not my version but very close to it…
Just to put you all on notice: I started my kids on Linux from day 1 of their computing lives. I’m playing the long game here. In another 80 years they’re going to be in the longest living users category.
They mostly use Linux as their daily drivers. Any time they have to use windows for school work they also rage at the terrible UI and lack of ease of use. <Insert evil laughter here>
a month ago, never goin back…so much power, so much free ram. im in love
in 2002 when my windows me computer start looping on the blue screen of death, with all of my college papers/essays/tests/assignments trapped in it.
the recovery media refused to work because i had upgraded the computer several times and i couldn’t afford the $180 windows xp cd. so i bought a linux magazine for $5 that included a copy of mandrake linux installation media and used paper printouts from my college’s computer labs to help me rescue my work from the computer.
That’s how you do it. Waiting to drown but suddenly learning to fly :D
lol. This is my story as well, except I wrecked my XP MBR and the CD was in Dr. Dobbs that my dad had a sub thru his work from. I was too impatient to wait for him to bring home an XP install CD.
I suspect that this is the story for most Linux users; windows failing at a critical need
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I first dipped my toes in when I was probably around 14, messed with Ubuntu and damn small Linux but that was about it. I stuck with Mac as I didn’t enjoy windows and needed something “mainstream” back then. It wasn’t until apple made hackintosh’s somewhat obsolete and Microsoft started cramming AI into windows that I made the switch. I now run NixOS on my gaming rig and personal laptop
I first experimented with Linux in 1999, but didn’t stay with it for long as I never got X11 working. I started using it more seriously in 2001 / 2002 and by the time Windows XP was established, I was a full time Linux user. I was a lot older than you though being in my mid-thirties.