I had some exposure to IBM DOS/360 systems in the late '60s (I was a young kid) and early '70s (Junior High, High School), KIM1 microprocessors and DEC PDP 9 through 11 minicomputer (remember that term?) systems in the mid to late '70s when I was at University. A friend of mine built an Altair 8800 from a kit.

In the late '70s I learned how to program in FORTRAN, COBOL, PL/1, and IBM 370 architecture assembly language. I played around a bit with 6502 and 6800 architectures (Apple). But Apple didn't really strike a chord with me. I bought my first 256K RAM IBM PC in 1984. I stuck with IBM compatible systems from that day on. I explored every flavor of IBM and MS and DR DOS, and CP/M and MP/M through the '80s and '90s, and all the MS Windows and IBM OS/2 variants through the late '80s / '90s, and the Windows Millennium, 2000, and XP versions through 2005. I still have Windows 2.1 and OS/2 1.2 Beta diskettes in a box somewhere.

I bought a retail box version of Red Hat Linux in the mid '90s. I didn't know that much about it, except that I knew it was another OS, and I wanted to know more about it. I think it was Red Hat 5.6 or something around there. I didn't really care that it was free. Actually, I don't think I knew that it was free at that time. I paid something like $60 or $70 for the retail box and diskettes, so it didn't seem free. I didn't even know what FOSS was. What fascinated me was that it was another OS, and that's all I really cared about. I was running the current flavors of DOS, Windows, OS/2, and Linux at the time, but my primary system was Windows, as it was vastly more functional than any of the others.

I continued my dedication to Windows until about 2004, when I began to actively try to convert to Linux. I set up a dual boot system running various flavors of Linux, mainly Fedora, Debian, and finally Slackware (THE BEST), and in 2006, I weaned myself completely off of Windows and ran Linux exclusively on all of my home systems.

That's it, really. Now, what was the question?

I started with windows 3.x got to windows 95 then 98 I was playing alot of online games at the time and got interested in networking I started my linux adventure with RedHat which I bought on cd at bestbuy with manuals later I got slackware as I found other distro's redhat and debian were based on slackware. slackware was nice and simple just plain worked was not bloated or as confusing as redhat. I was still into games so dual booted for couple years then stayed in linux most of the time as kde rolled out and was nice desktop environment I have mainly used linux since though still have windows around to do things linux does not do well yet but times are always changing linux is getting better and better I love linux <3.

Free BSD,

Somewhere in 80's I was working in the university and got a computer with 386 chip on it, but running DOS. On the other hand, we had some SUN UNIX workstations and with them I got used to Unix and X Windows. Idea then rose to be able to convert my 386 to a Unix workstation and run my "huge" Fortran programs on Sun using X Windoewing. The project ended up with a network of Redhat and Slackware Linux PCs with my 386 running as a disk server for the rest...

But I still miss the OpenWindows of SUN. That I liked with its pinned menus etc.

I knew Linux and open source from newspapers at first when in the college, and then read the book of Just For Fun. I love it. It's Suse of the first distribution I installed, when in a small german company.

have you tried PC-BSD?

I was given a Dos 3 PC and can remember sitting in carparks, waiting for the wife to finish shopping, reading PCDos and MSDos books.
Was interested in why things did what they did and fixed a couple of problems at work on the PC's. from there stayed with Microsoft, that was where I was making money, threw up when looking at Windows 2, then when Windows 3 came out work changed to that. I wish I would have tinkered with Linux earlier but now putting mint on end users PC's and trying to re program my brain.

Using ProxMox (Runs on Debian) to Virtualise Linux and MS.
Tom

I joined Bell Labs in Naperville, IL in 1968. In the early 1970's I heard about this little operating system called UNIX and got access to it. Later worked on programming electronic telephone switching systems (ESS) which used operating systems based on UNIX. While working on a unique UNIX based AT&T computer called the 3B4000 I had a "Unix PC" (misnamed the AT&T 3B1) on my desk. Later worked in software development on Solaris work stations. Before I retired I ran Windoze PCs at home for a while, then discovered Linix, starting with an early Red Hat distro. Now run a Penguin machine on CentOS 5.10.

Got my first home PC in 2000 ... installed Win 98 SE and promptly got infected. After increasing insecurity through several installs of 98 and XP, I finally found a Linux distro that was user-friendly, Xandros. Three years later they stopped developing the desktop ... but I knew enough to switch distros. Every machine I have run since runs Ubuntu or Xubuntu.

I was trying to teach myself computer programming, and stumbled upon
"C++ For Dummies" in my school's library. While reading through it, I
encountered some references to "UNIX"; before reading that book, the
only time I'd ever heard the term "UNIX" was in "Jurassic Park" ("It's
a UNIX system! I *know* this!"). I didn't think much more of it for
awhile, though.
Fast forward a couple years, and my mom - as punishment for me not
doing my homework - sets a password on my (Windows XP) desktop.
Unbenownst to her, I was able to bypass it by using the computer's
Administrator account, but I started to realize the need for an
environment that my mom wouldn't be able to see - something that I
could boot into *instead* of Windows, so that if she came home, I
could hit the reset button and get back into Windows.
I vaguely remembered that "UNIX" that I had read about, and started
Googling for info on it. Turns out, there was a free version called
Linux, and if I downloaded an install disk, I can have a
fully-functional "LiveCD" that I could at *least* surf the web with.

So, a few hours of downloading .iso images over a DSL connection and
one blank CD-R later, I had myself three of these "LiveCD"s - one
called "Damn Small Linux", one called "Musix", and one called
"Ubuntu". I tried them one-by-one, and was immediately blown away by
the fact that Damn Small Linux - despite weighing in at a mere 50MB -
had a (more-or-less) full assortment of programs. It didn't like my
computer's ethernet chip, though, so I went to Musix next. Much
bigger, but the wide assortment of music programs (I did - and still
do - enjoy writing electronic music) was a big plus. However, there
was still no internet connection.
Enter Ubuntu. I hadn't the slightest idea what the hell a "Gutsy
Gibbon" was, but I figured it was high time to find out. I popped the
CD in, waited a few minutes for it to boot, and was rather suddenly
greeted with the jubilant sounds of African drums and singers. Nice,
straightforward interface back then; it was easy to figure out that
"Applications" had all the programs, "Places" had all the computer's
disk drives, and "System" had system stuff. Plus, not only did it
support my computer's NIC, but I also discovered that it supported
NTFS, allowing me to access my files without trouble.
I eventually got a second computer from my uncle (who got me into
computers in the first place) for me to "tinker with". Old Athlon XP
system. Had a Windows 2000 installation on it already; I promptly set
up a Windows/Ubuntu dual-boot, just to see if it could be done.
Started with a WUBI installation, then - when the loopback image
eventually got corrupted to hell by a Windows defrag - went with a
proper dual-boot install, which - to my surprise - went without a
hitch. At this point, I started to branch out to other "open-source"
operating systems - FreeDOS, ReactOS, MINIX, FreeBSD, whatever I could
possibly download and (try to) get running on some machine.

Now I'm my town's very own "Unix guy" (though I lack the wizardly
beard that normally accompanies such a designation). Moved on from
Ubuntu; when I got tired of Unity and Ubuntu in general and didn't
find Mint to my liking, I started distro-hopping like crazy until I
eventually settled with Slackware and openSUSE. Still exploring,
though; the laptop I'm typing this response with is running a week-old
installation of OpenBSD, which I'm very much enjoying, and I've taken
quite a liking to Plan 9, even if I can't seem to get it to work right
with real hardware.
And all because my mom tried to keep me off the computer 7 years ago

We decided to implement Ubuntu Server a couple of years back while working for an ISP. We ran our DNS & Mail Servers on this platform. Best move we ever made...

I was taking classes towards a degree in Computer Networking. We had two classes covering Linux server management, so to satisfy the appetite that was acquired from class, I searched and found the site and has gleaned much from it.

---------- Post added 02-18-14 at 02:50 AM ----------

I was taking classes towards a degree in Computer Networking. We had two classes covering Linux server management, so to satisfy the appetite that was acquired from class, I searched and found the site and has gleaned much from it.

I got involve in linux, because when I saw the KDE desktop I was shock, them I started looking info about linux operating systems and trying to use, until 2009 when I began working as a Network manager and the admins that where there had debian lenny in the mail relay. since them i've being learning to use debian as my all around operating system.

I was using OS/2 and found some Unix-like tools; I thought, why not go all the way and get a Unix system? The only one I found was Slackware Linux. This was 1993. After a while, I found Debian (version 1.2) and I've been with Debian ever since.

I am a developer: for the last 18 years, used Algol 68, but I have now switched to Common Lisp.

From Burroughs Mainframes to SCO Xenix then SCO Unix and not long after picked up a customer with RH 5. The rest as they say is history!
When SCO went the linux route I had already used Caldera to run Appgen on. After that mess and reading the Caldera support list it seemed that quite a few Caldera user opted to move to Gentoo! I just followed them and have not looked back! Gentoo certainly gives me control of what gets installed and how it gets compiled. After all they are my customers systems and most preform the way I expect them to!