When did you go full Linux nerd?

I've been using Linux since 1995, but had an on-again-off-again relationship with it for a while, because I wanted to play games. So it was usually dual boot. But in 2007 I bought a PS3 and have been gaming on PlayStation exclusively since then, which allowed me to go fulltime Linux. I also worked a lot with OpenBSD and still miss pf, which is such a lovely firewall. iptables is horrible shit compared to it (I am aware of nftables, but it's too new to replace the long years of iptables).

I've been running 99% Linux for ten ish years or so. I finally got rid of the last windows vm a few months ago. The one hold out piece of software now runs in wine properly and I got to delete that vm.

In 2004 grandpa gave me an old laptop from 1995 to play around with. I wanted it to be faster so I tried using g.ho.st. That was a terrible experience, too slow of internet, cloud computing was never gonna work. After that I tried suse. They had this fancy iso builder at the time that let me pick all the packages I want from the repo and have them present on my ISO.

That's started my journey, outside of school I've had Linux exclusively since.

0.92

Dual booting with Ubutu a couple tiimes over the last decade, then tried dual booting with Mint 3 years ago on W10, thenW11 is annouced, seems the enshitifaction would be worse but, didn't use Mint, same reasn I'd not used Ubuntu, fell back on the familiar.

Purchased a new NVME 2 years ago, instilled Mint on it and took the dual boot NVME physically out, 3 months later formated it and use it for Timeshift :) Then.went to LMDE.

Eventually got sick of the nagging on my infrequently used Surface Pro 7 about going to W11 and did the same thing there, wiped it and installed LMDE, a few hiccups but used the Surface Pro drivers from Github and got it sorted eventually, touch works etc

The main reason i stayed was Adobe Lighroom but that was enshitifying as well. I still haven't wrapped my head around Darktable properly but less time spent on photography these days as well

Some time after I went OpenBSD and then FreeBSD nerd.

Last year sometime. Frustrated by Microsoft's latest tomfoolery, I decided, "eh, might as well give Linux another shot, it's been a decade or so since the last time."

So I booted up my fifteen-year-old desktop computer as a testbed before I put it on my daily driver laptop. First I booted it into Windows (7, because that's how old it is and it couldn't hack Windows 10) to see if there was any data I needed to pull off of it, and predictably it was an awful experience. Slow? Try glacial. Constantly paging out of memory. I had to put it in safe mode without networking just to get it to boot all the way up. I grabbed everything I thought I needed and breathed a sigh of relief that I was done with that.

Then I put Linux Mint on it. And...wow.

Like, I knew Linux did a good job on older systems, but this was unbelievable to me. It was snappy and responsive in a way that it has literally never been. The thing ran like butter. I was flying around that OS, installing games, setting up backups, even trying my hand at a bit of light self-hosting.

But the real kicker came when I installed VirtualBox. See, I have one program that I still need Windows for; an Adobe program that some people I work with still use. So I installed VirtualBox and put Windows 10 on there, fully expecting to clown on Windows for a few minutes but just hoping I'd see enough to know whether it would be usable on my laptop.

But no. Windows 10—which, when I tried a decade ago, couldn't run on that machine at all—ran almost flawlessly in VirtualBox on Linux. I mean, it wasn't the quickest thing ever, but for a modern build of a more-or-less modern OS on a computer older than my marriage, it was honestly amazing.

So, when did I go full Linux nerd? When I discovered that it can run Windows better than Windows can.

There are a few other things, too. The software manager, the customizability, the lack of ads, the unobtrusive updates... And at some point along the way, I realized that it actually felt like my computer, which is a feeling I haven't felt in ages.

It's a great feeling.

Earlier this year when I made the switch as I was getting blue screens at least once a day while gaming. Initially to endeavoros with cinnamon, then switched to Hyprland.

There have been some fixes that make me wonder at what point am I tinkering vs implementing a fix that should be included in the base version of the Linux flavor... Many rabbit holes over the last 6 months, many more to come.

It was far too recent for somebody with my background. I learned how the UNIX command line was different from DOS in the late 90s, but it was only last year that I switched from a VM to a native Linux install at work. Then I swapped over the home PCs during winter.

After defaulting to Windows for so long because of games and employers favoring it, it was almost frustrating how fast, smooth, and "clean" feeling it was to install Linux natively on a system compared with the recent versions of Windows. And that's without any special lightweight distro. I am a proud Linux Mint Cinnamon user, lol.

During 2013 in college I had an old MacOS laptop. Like a 2009 macbook. It was good for it's age until it wasn't. When it came time to replace it I had stumbled upon the world of Linux. I knew I wanted to build a desktop and all I needed to do was choose a distro. At the same time I had an Information Technology class. One day I asked the professor if he ever heard of Linux. That question derailed the class and I left that day knowing I was gonna spend the next few days installing Arch on my new system. The rest is history. Arch is my first and only distro. It's been an amazing ride so far.

1999, I think. I did attend a handful of packet radio workshops with a nearby HAM club.

Tinkered with a WRT54GL router since 2004, running OpenWRT

Then used SuSE on my work laptop from 2005 to 2010 or thereabouts and was forced to switch back to windows

My Dreambox 7000 satellite receiver also ran Linux.

After that it was 2 iterations of Western digital NASes with optware and some hacking.

Some Cisco/Linksys router with some usb hack as well to get a SSH access.

In parallel a virtual box VM with Opens use to cross compile my flavour of software to read my weather station data

Got in raspberry pi in 2017 with Octoprint and 3D printing. I have 3 running.

Began developing my home automation in Node Red on a Pi in 2018

I began self hosting in 2019, with a rack of raspberry pi on a DIN rail, nice compact setup.

Got a third WD NAS, à PI 4 with 8GB ram as a desktop computer

And finally consolidated everything with Proxmox running on a Aoostar R1, intel N100, 32GB ram, 1TB nvme and the pair of 14TB HDDs from the last NAS in raid1. All services as LXC containers.

Only VM is a Win11 desktop when I really need one with a remote access. Main remote desktop is a Debian LXC with XFCE, plain basic.

Last WD NAS got a pair of refurbished 12TB HDD and is used as a cold backup.

Over 25 years and, yes some Linux.

TL;DR: Smart sibling ahead of the curve told me in 2011 that tech jobs will be the future and naturally I didn't listen, fast forward to 2016 and my contract job laid me off so I started learning Python (as advised by smart sibling)

I start making all sorts of stupid stuff mostly CLI programs, beginner alg problems. beginner alg console games and so on.

Suddenly I realize I probably know enough to make something real, start slowing learning new things and always think "hmm a real software dev probably does x" and then try x.

Went from CLI stuff to web APIs, then full stack websites, then platform specific gui programs, then learning C++.

And at some point it clicked that this stuff is a lot easier than I thought (I had literally no concept of what programming was before)

I apply for an associates in tech program, just before starting I decide to use Linux to get more familiar with dev technology.

I picked Arch Linux btw, had some issues btw, overcame issues btw and then I landed a job during school as a dev and I kept using Linux as dev.

So it was mostly about getting to understand dev landscape more

I use CachyOS on my desktop (I game), and Arch Linux on laptop (by far the best laptop user experience with tiling wm)

About 1995.

When I saw Windows 11.

Uni, around 2019! Had a professor on the web team who encouraged all students to do the entire uni education on Linux.

All tools and course material was tailored to work on Linux. Hand-ins, exams and anything related either functioned or had custom solutions built by the teachers, student and professors on the web programme.

Everything was open source and if we found any bugs we could just open issues on GitHub. Weekly hand-ins were done on the student server on your own instance of the web server.

In almost every aspect i think that programme was so well tailored for learning real web dev work.

It's 1995!
Now that I'm older stress weighs on my shoulders
Heavy as boulders but I told ya

When I got frustrated with Windows around 2019 and I had spare time I decided that enough is enough and spent a couple of days to take the time to learn Arch Linux and all of its quirks.

Around 2020 I started tinkering with NixOS as well which culminated as my NixOS configuration.

Although at this point I'm going back to Arch Linux as I actually know how to fix and make modifications faster and better than I could on NixOS.

Since I started daily driving it last summer. Before that, I used Debian in a VM on my Chromebook.

Every few years since the mid 2000s I've dual booted Linux (often Ubuntu) briefly before removing it again and just using windows and then I stopped for many years. I've gradually become less happy with windows, increasing ads and tracking but then the announcement of recall made it clear I had to switch. I was going to wait but then windows 24H2 update broke my Bluetooth audio so that was the last straw.

I installed endeavourOS on a separate drive and really liked it. GNOME at first. Then I installed nixOS and for me was almost perfect but I couldn't get a few things to work like PIAs GUI app and doing some software development was more awkward than I liked.

Now I'm back on endeavourOS but with KDE plasma and it's great.

During Covid, 2020-2021. I was under the weather and bored out of my mind. I spontaneously decided to install Arch Linux, and the rest is history. Installing Arch was invaluable to my learning experience, and taught me a lot about Linux

I got my start with linux as a student looking to do astronomy. I didn't have any issues with windows that got me to switch; just liked it more for its own sake. I think I went full nerd when I realized how to compile my own stuff and set environment variables. I also really liked having a package manager.

When I "solved" teering on nvidia by installing i3 and started using only terminal, because any gui program was still freezing.

I originally used linux because I could only get my hands on ancient or broken tech.

Then I switched to Windows again because I was able to buy a modern laptop and started university which more or less required Microsoft services.

Two years ago I started using Linux on my dual booted machines more frequently. Last year I realized I mostly didn’t need Windows so I decided to find a daily driver distro.

I forgot how easy it is to get caught up in distro hopping lol. I started with Debian because I remembered apps with Linux support typically only provide .deb packages.

Then the new KDE came out and I couldn’t wait to use it so I moved to fedora. Then, in looking into visual aesthetics, I decided I wanted to give hyprland a try and honestly just try Arch and make everything my own.

That was a mistake. Too many options to the point I was only using my computer for messing with the visuals.

I moved to fedora because it would just work, used it for a semester, and then moved back to arch (w/ xfce) and have been using it ever since.

I’d say around the switch from Arch to Fedora was when I became a Linux nerd because I realized that there isn’t really a best distro for every circumstance. My nerdiness has reached enlightenment lol

I started using linux in 2011, but went full linux nerd in 2014/2015, while still in high school. Changed distros, changed OSs, changed everything, but full time it was linux all along, from ubuntu, to elementary os, to arch, to hackintosh, to solus, to endeavouros, to a lot of distros, but now i'm stable at cachyos (the optimized packages are amazing, ngl).

After I switched to Linux Mint because Windows 7 got EOL a friend showed me Manjaro. I used it for a while and it was a pain in the ass. This was the moment I took a look at Arch Linux and after my first successful install I went full Linux nerd. This is roughly 5 years ago and now I even work in IT despite having studied social science.

I think I was still occasionally using Mac OS in early 1999, but I made the leap sometime that year.

when apple took all the USB ports out of their macbooks. i needed a new computer, one with a practical set of ports, and windows was never an option

Summer of 2020. Lockdown was in full effect and I was working from home. I wouldn't say I had a lot of extra free time (my kid was 1 year old at the time, lol), but I spent many hours that Summer tinkering with various projects, and that led me to eventually adopt Linux as my daily driver on all my machines.

I've dabbled with Linux since 2005, but was never savvy enough to completely ditch Windows until 2020.

1994

Super long time ago. Mandrake anything? How about Slack? Ha ha good times. Probably 20 years ago. I loved freedom Linux offered. Back then graphics divers sucked bad. Just getting opengl working was an accomplished. I can remember thinking "I'm going to just run Linux". It was rough, then I discovered Slack, then I discovered Debian, then I discovered Ubuntu, then Debian, then Arch.

These days I dual boot usually with two disks. 97% of the time I use Linux, but if something dumb comes up I'll bring up Windows.

i don't deep dive into it enough to be a 'nerd', but i've been using some form or another since the early days of slack and debian.

When I bought my first PC in 1994.

At the time, the choice of hardware I could afford and operating systems that didn't suck was extremely limited, a PC with Linux was pretty much the only practical choice and I've stuck with that ever since.

Windows 7 had this annoying Windows Update notification, but my four-person household at the time collectively only had 10 GB of 16 Mbit/s and given my former experiments with Knoppix, I knew that the UI of Linux was more configurable and less authoritarian and I assumed that I could learn more easily within Linux how to save on data usage (including the update process). Some people also told me that there would be no viruses on Linux due to its relative obscurity back then.

Ubuntu 7.10 so late 2007, but I guess the nerd part came when I installed Arch in 2011. Still running that very same install.

Around 2024,late 2024-early 2025 is where I fully ditched windows

When I built my own PC a little over a year ago. I only knew about Linux in the first place because I was trying (unsuccessfully) to make a media server out of an old laptop (I eventually figured it out)

Back when I was first in high school, I got into torrenting and gave myself pretty bad malware that just black-screened my laptop, and even though it had shipped with windows, the installer would not detect my ssd for whatever reason. Linux detected my hardware and I installed Ubuntu, then Mint, and I moved to Arch a few years ago after having learned the ropes. That's about when I fully spiralled into linux nerd.

On and off over the last 15 years or so.

Only recently have I become much more comfortable & able to resolve things without resorting to search, stackoverflow etc.

The turnover point was the day I finally learned vi & cron so I could fiddle with an old Buffalo NAS, that was long out of support, riddled with security holes, and offered only very limited tooling.

Was a great learning experience, but it didn't pan out the way I wanted. So it runs Debian now, supports modern protocols, and continues to serve. Amazing what you can keep in service when you try.

I used Linux on and off since 2009?

But it was mostly just for work. I never really converted until proton came about. It made gaming viable on Linux and really provided a way to use Linux everyday.