So why linux, why ubuntu? Tell us how you got here!

[Delupara]

Pretty simple, Why if you were on another OS why did you migrate to linux, and if you we're always on linux from the start, did you ever wanted to transition to another os? if so why? And last but not least: why Ubuntu based distro (xubuntu, lubuntu, ubuntu etc)?

[QIII]

Moved to Recurring Discussions.

[cmcanulty]

Speed, configurability, security.Also installing apps without getting the secret adware or other stuff you get from
windows "freeware". I see the test results showing ubuntu being slightly slower than windows 7 or 10, but when I sit next to a friend with a laptop with the exact same specs, mine opens browsers, office, etc way faster, not even close. And the community, very helpful and usually can solve a problem quickly.

[TheFu]

Pretty simple, Why if you were on another OS why did you migrate to linux, and if you we're always on linux from the start, did you ever wanted to transition to another os? if so why? And last but not least: why Ubuntu based distro (xubuntu, lubuntu, ubuntu etc)?

Linux didn't exist when I started (and wouldn't exist for about a decade). Started on TRS-80s, then MS-Dos, DR-Dos, did some "CDC and Cray mainframes" in school, switched to MVS at work, then OS/2, then Windows 3.x, NT, 2000, XP, while also running on Unix systems (10+ flavors) at work in the early '90s.

OS/2 Warp was an amazing OS, but needed 8MB of RAM to work well. At the time, 4MB of RAM was common and Warp struggled with that limitation. OS/2 is why I added a CDROM to my computer. It was the best OS to develop DOS and Windows programs on at the time. A rogue pointer could overwrite the OS back then, so having "protected memory" was a big deal. Most of the GNU tools ported to OS/2 easily - it was 32-bit when Windows wasn't yet and before Linux was stable enough to use. Running DOS games inside OS/2 was pretty great too.

Ran SLS, then slackware at home for a server (web, samba, email, gaming and other assorted uses) long before doing anything more than playing with it as a desktop. Ran Redhat as a home server for a few years, then Mandrake, SuSE all before trying any Linux desktop seriously. Also used Linux at work beginning around 1994 for internal work web sites and email needs - old desktop HW was all we could afford and wasting expensive CPU cycles on a SPARC for that stuff just wasn't smart. Never seriously considered Linux as a desktop until around 2006 ... think SuSE was my first real desktop use, but was still mainly a Windows desktop user. Nothing bad happened with SuSE, but there was lots of hype about a new desktop ... "ubuntu" was the name.

Why? Linux was free and I'd already spent the time learning how to manage it via text files (which almost all still work today). Other OS options were $120-$3K (some Unixen only work on specific hardware). I do still have an old SPARC, but my oldest running PC is about 200x faster than that model running Solaris. Tried OSX a few years ago. Found it to be very frustrating. Found the GUI to be extremely limiting and they used funny names for common stuff that has been around decades rather than the real names. Since I was trying to make OSX "feel" like Unix, which wasn't fair, it turned out badly. After 2 weeks of using it 8+ hrs a day, I gave the system back. Ubuntu with openbox is my primary system, but I still use Win7 for a few things - haven't found efficient replacements for a few things I do on Windows yet. Had a Windows desktop break over the weekend and tried to find replacements for the 1 thing it is used for - failed. That really got me thinking about what will happen when that machine truly dies. What will I do? It doesn't have any data on it, so that isn't an issue, but I'll miss the 1 program that only works on Windows which it runs. The 2 days I tried to use Linux only programs to perform the same processing failed terribly. They ignored (and dropped) part of the data this other program handles perfectly.

Linux has always been a server first to me, not a desktop. I've run Unix servers professionally for decades, so the fact that Linux servers are very similar is comforting.

Which Ubuntu distro? Ubuntu Server. Started out using stock Ubuntu around 8.04. 10.04 stock Ubuntu was a magical release. Things worked the way I expected. Installed Lubuntu on Mom's Pentium4 about that time. She used it for years. I was using VMs more and more, so all the added GUI bloat beginning in 11.04 with the first Unity release broke that. It has continued to be broken as far as I can tell ever since. I find stock Ubuntu to be nasty, but can see why many people would like it. It just doesn't fit my needs. Switched to Xubuntu around 12.04 ... then to Lubuntu a little while. Eventually, even that became too bloated for my needs so I started just loading "server" on everything then adding fvwm or openbox for any _desktops_ with GUIs I wanted (2 at this point). Most systems here don't have a GUI and serve as virtual machine servers only. However, my main desktop runs inside a VM on one of those headless systems. I access it from either a netbook or a Windows system using NX (x2go specifically) from anywhere in the world. It is my desktop. If there is an ISDN or faster internet connection it works almost as well as when I'm on the same subnet at home. Completely serious, provided a lite desktop is used.

Why Ubuntu? LTS. APT. Fresher than Debian stable, without the risks of Debian testing. Was burned by rpm-based distros long ago ... not really fair, since I know now that those problems were self-inflicted. It was a different time and compiling from source code was very common which forced unwise dependencies. The packages I wanted back then weren't available any other way. That isn't the situation anymore. The Ubuntu ecosystem has been working for me.

Of course, I could have selective memory. That happens to everyone as the years pass.

[colin.p]

I was given a install CD of Hardy by my BIL who came to visit from out west. That was December 2008 and soon after, I installed Intrepid. Used it until Jaunty came out and then moved to it. Karmic came and then went to Lucid LTS. I then skipped Maverick, Natty, Oneiric, then onto Precise then went to Trusty then now to Xenial.

My first computer was a beige box running a 486SX with 4MB ram and a 80MB hard-drive, that ran DOS 6.1/Win3.1. I then went to Win 95 in 96, then to 98 in 99 and then 2000 in 2001. In 2005, I finally succumbed to XP. In 2008, I went to ubuntu and I never looked back. I built several computers since the old 486 and now I'm running a Dell 1545 laptop.

I, however, do run a Win 7 (gaming machine hand-me-down from my son) that is my torrent/media server and that's only because it has a wonky video card that makes rebooting a little iffy, that and I'm too lazy to wipe it and put ubuntu on it.

[coldraven]

Quite simple, Windows turned into spyware when Vista was launched. I was not happy that my OS was constantly checking to see if I was was copying some "copyright" material.
Please read this this quite long essay on why this is the case. In a nutshell Windows is a friend of Hollywood and not a friend of you.
https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut0...ista_cost.html