Why did Linux pick you? And why did Sid?

[Potatohead]

As every other Linux forum, we need a

why did you choose Linux

thread, but I believe Linux picks us..... Let me kick off!

Why did Tux pick me?

• I like logic. For me, as a non-IT guy, Linux is the only OS I understand, or at least have the feeling "yes, give me time and I can learn this". Some other OS-es are more like complex plates of spaghetti (yes Windows I'm looking at you).
• Linux has the lowest "WTF" factor. To parafrase Suckless: all operating systems sucks, Linux sucks less.
• I like simplicity. I am too scatter brained to keep track of licenses, activations and so on.
• I like freedom.
• I like to go against the grain. I don't like big corporations, I don't like "hip" things. My dream would be to only use Plan9. But unfortunately it's not ready- and never will... :-( Glenda is the nicest, nerdiest mascotte there is! But, a barbecuing pinguin is a good 2nd!

Why did Sid pick me?

• I am not afraid of risk. I like risk, change, progress. "If it ain't broken, break it!"
• Debian has a huge repository
• I like this forum, I like the approach and the feel of LinuxBBQ, and the guys who started it seem really nice blokes :-)
• Gentoo looks very nice as well but too hard for me as a non-IT guy. Arch is very nice as well, but lacks in the democracy factor and in the fun factor. Plus it's too popular ;-)

[rhowaldt]

i came to Linux out of curiosity, and machinebacon convinced me to stay.
Sid picked me because i am another toy to be broken. it is how Sid works. yin and yang and all that shit don't apply to him.

[machinebacon]

Actually I completely agree the OP, maybe except of Plan9 which I didn't have the pleasure to use on a real gridiron.
Sid doesn't really break, it's just a moving target. If somebody uses his computer every day, he or she should at least invest the few minutes to care for the OS, just like with a pet, a plant, or the family. It doesn't hurt to know what is 'going on behind the scenes' of the computer's OS, and there's barely any other OS that allows it as nicely as Linux.

[p120d16y]

Started using Linux as an embedded system and putting it on devices that were not meant to run linux. I used the Cromwell BIOS to flash my original Xbox, then put Linux on an old iPod.
I first started liking Linux for the freedom of the sandbox and modifiable code.
I was always a Windows user before 2004-2005 and from then on I used only Linux at home.
I also like the fact that nobody I even personally know in my IT social network of friends uses Linux.
I'm all about freedom.

[ivanovnegro]

Linux picked me when I had my first computer, it was very late for that time. I did not care much about Windows and had no idea about Windows itself or computers but I knew what to do with them and what I needed and wanted and already installed Ubuntu on it, since then I use Linux, had many distros to play with. I already used mostly open source applications.

I am no IT guy at all. I am an academic.

I am focused on software that I need and Sid gives me reasonable new software and Debian works like I am used to. I am very lazy. An Ubuntu that rolls a bit, that is what I wanted, so I learned how Debian works and even better, how Ubuntu does its things.

As a humanist, you cannot go wrong with the tools Linux provides you.

[dkeg]

began using LInux recently in 2009 / 2010. At the time I just dual booted with W7 with either Ubuntu or LinuxMint. From that point on I booted into the W7 partition less and less. I went to school with a buddy who used BSD and had a very minimal set up. He always worked in VIM and it was amazing watching him work and his understanding of the directories and where stuff was and how to fix or get things to work. Then I came across CB and really from that point on it was all Linux. B/t the configurations, the forum, the community, etc, I was totally hooked and never looked back. I soon blew away W7.

Now with bbq, it is like that all over again. I really enjoy being a part of this community here. What has also been really great is finally having the opportunity to give back. So I guess I picked Sid by picking bbq. I think really it was just sort of meant to be. Sounds kind of corny, but for me, this is my kind of place, my kind of style.

[vic]

Why Linux? It was there, something different. Just had to try it out. The curiosity about the mainstream alternative had to be investigated. Sid? I guess the same, had to check it ut. A natural evolvement of my hobby/interest. Sorry, no deep intelligent reasons why here. :)

[rust collector]

The first computer I bought new was an acer aspire netbook.
It came with linpus lite, and it did work well for what I did.

The first thing I installed myself, was debian netinstall, with lxde, dual booted with xp-lite. (on the 8gb ssd)
That was a pretty good install, or at least I thought it was.

After some time, I found antix in the mepis part of unetbootin, and it was nice and fast.
It took some time before I discovered it was an old version (and I think it still is)
Antix M11 was the first thing I tried to tinker with,
and anticapitalista and the forum thought me most of the little I know about linux. So a huge thanks to him/them.

I do not remember why I ended up on the bbq. It was probably a link in some comment someone made, in some place.
I have learned a lot here too, about "deeper" and/or "pretty" things in linux. so thanks to you too.

And that is why you are stuck with me here.

[vic]

You did never got computerupted by the W route to Linux then?

[rust collector]

I had an old box with xp on it, but I was not interested in computers then.
It was just a way to get a web browser running.

[wuxmedia]

Where did this thread come from? :)
I may have not answered because the 'core' users have surely heard this story:
I had always mucked around with computers and in 2009 got an old thinkpad 380XD with XP, that worked quite nicely for a P2 with 96Mb of RAM. Then I think my step bro suggested I should put linux on, I was blown away with what Damn Small Linux could do with so little, then got into Tiny Core (which still resides on there this day, although haven't used it for 5/6 years) where my current manager at work helped me by getting onto jabber and giving me a ssh account on his server.
The home computer was strictly windows due to a few useful progs and the GFX card always gave me headache and crappy GFX.
Then I got given an old dell something laptop, I put XP on and it was pretty bad.
I found #! and was happy with that for a while, then got SIDuced by Bacon's infectious enthusiasm, tireless work ethic and this forum.
Still running on the Acer Aspire 5630 rescued from my mothers as a doorstop.
Not yet looked back.

Why SID? Why not, everything works pretty well, the packages are fresh - and the BBQ rolls with it, so there.

[GekkoP]

Interesting question, haven't seen this topic before.

Linux picked me because of C. I was studying C in highschool and having the opportunity to mess with the kernel writing crazy bad little modules was very cool.

Then I fell in love with open source and free software ethic/philosophy. I guess I am just the kind of guy RMS could trust despite that wireless-thingy he will never be cool with. Still today, knowing that I can help developers discussing an issue and do some tests gives me that magic thrill.

Sid? Sid means LinuxBBQ to me. Coming from Slackware, Ubuntu, Mint and then CrunchBang, the grill gives me the fun of experimenting and learning. Just like the old days with that crazy C code. I just needed that.

[darry1966]

Mmm -First question Linux because I got tired of Blue Screens and wanted to try something new. Redhat 8 was my first.
Second Question - I will answer as what bought me to LinuxBBQ Sid after 4 years with a distro with a package manager that didn't work well at all I finally brike away and tried the BBQ and it has taught me new skills commandline wise and it works and is really stable and frankly is really low on ram even more than my previous Distro. Networking is a dream with ceni.

Sid is incredibly stable and reliable with BBQ.

I have three at the moment that I reallly love Bork of course, Chicken wings and Roasted Roach - I could rave on all day just love it absouletly love LinuxBBQ.

:)

[hinto]

I started using Linux in 2006.
I needed a 64 bit non-Windows development environment to develop a client/server (Java/CORBA) application.
By the time I was code freezing, the testers (who by now had forgotten how to test on anything other than Windows) started testing on AIX (64 bit) and non-Active Directory. (Our default workstations were XP/32) The CORBA part started throwing Bus Errors (sigfault) and the mixed authentication really started making everything go wonky. Thought the errors were not hard to fix, it was tough since the code was freezing. I vowed never again.

I picked SID from the start by using Kanotix, which was SID and had both 32 bit and 64 bit versions from the start.
Many of the original devs are still part of siduction. I use SID because of the patience of those original members when I first started and because it rolls.
At this time I used the famous h2 scripts, which are now called smxi.

-Hinto

[bones]

OK, wow, let's see... I first used a computer in 1977, it was an Apple II. C64 early on. Started using Macs in 1986, never really used Windows. Was really into BeOS back in the day. Discovered Linux around 1999-2000, bought RedHat Linux (pre-RHEL and Fedora) with manual at brick-and-mortar software store. I think Corel Linux was next.

At some point I found Ubuntu (6.06 I think), #! when it was based on Ubuntu, and eventually to Debian. Found sid via sidux>aptosid>siduction. Found the grill while searching for lightweight distros to try, I think I may have heard about it at #! forums first.

Although I don't use much Debian these days, primarily Slackware, it's the spirit, flavor, camaraderie, give-no-fucks, not too serious nature of the grill that makes it home for me. And the willingness to experiment and not have slavish devotion to just one distro.

[kexolino]

Hm, I started in 2010. What got me into it was the kind of cliché no viruses talk. There was always something that wasn't going right with Windows XP, so I made the jump to Ubuntu. Installing software from one place, no viruses, no slowdowns were a major selling point for me back then.

It was super bloated (I was using KTorrent on Ubuntu 10.04 with Gnome for fuck's sake) for quite a while and I had icons on the desktop, but eventually I found #!, when it was already based on Debian. Now I run Arch, but I'm really not that good with all this, so for me it's not very different from Sid. As for why, it's just shiny and new. Stable Debian is good, but sometimes it's just a little too.. old.

[darry1966]

"it's the spirit, flavor, camaraderie, give-no-fucks, not too serious nature of the grill that makes it home for me."

Yep always cheers me up coming to these forums.

[Dr_Chroot]

At the risk of sounding like potatohead's echo, Linux just plain seemed more logical in how it was structured. The filesystem layout of Unix appealed to me and Linux seemed like something that I could learn in bite-sized chunks. Ubuntu was so easy a cave man could use it, yet it was also so complex that you could deploy it in an enterprise environment. I just liked that :) It was based on free/open-source software (which I had been introduced to the philosophy of in a basic computing course) and it also seemed to be more secure than what Windows seemed to be. Another major part was the community: they all seemed united by a common set of principles and rare enough to feel as if they were in a brotherhood :D

Sid reeled me in because I like using the cutting edge of things instead of the dull, stable versions. There was something exciting knowing that I could stumble upon (and report!) major bugs that the community would then work together to fix :) It was less well known than Arch seemed to be, which was a plus for me, and seemed to have a more serious community working together. The BBQ embodied all of the elements of FLOSS that I was looking for and seemed to package it neatly in something that I could both relate with and learn from; it just made sense.

[elixir]

I was always into tweaking things, well as much as I could tweak on Windows. I was also always interested in Linux when I first heard about it but was too afraid to make the switch because I would be out of a comfort zone and I knew there was going to be much to learn on a switch. After some time, I felt guilty because almost everything I had was pirated (music, OS, software). I finally was pushed to make the switch, by my now wife, and have not looked back since. Linux chose me in 2013. I am late to the party but that is what is hip now, isn't it?

I am not exactly sure that sid chose me. I do enjoy sid, yes. But in my recent days I am going through a scratch Linux phase. I wanted to know how everything tinkered together by building an OS and am still getting an understanding of it all. I am sure I will soon settle down to something with a package manager, and I know it will be apt-get.

[archvortex]

Back in 1995, some of my old nerd friends were Radio Shack Managers and when I ran into them on a visit back to Vancouver, they told me about Slackware. I had taken a bunch of Computer Science courses as well as learning Basic, Cobol, Pascal and Fortran at university so my curiosity got the best of me and I took 24 floppies with Slack back to Macau with me to install on my new computer. I was hooked and that was that.

As for Sid, I found aptosid after it changed from Sidux and started using it. Never posted in the forum because I never had a problem with my installation but I read a lot of posts that were quite strong in wording and emotions. :-) The only thing I didn't like about aptosid, besides the wallpaper, was changing run levels to install packages if you followed the recommended method of DU-ing. The -d flag was/is great to download and then install when you have time or the inclination to do so.