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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

1994

Uh, just yesterday. Installed NixOS (with KDE) because I learned Debian at work, but am really missing the ability to track what I’ve installed via configuration. I like the idea of dotfiles in a repo, but want a bit more control like that for my OS.

Context: I’m a data engineer that writes Python. Python has pyproject.toml files (toml ~= ini files) where you can specify which libraries you want to use, defining which version you minimally, maximally, or just specifically want. And I wished that setup existed for Debian as well, but it doesn’t. So after searching I found that NixOS is pretty much the closest thing. Windows 10 is EOL soon enough, so might as well switch beforehand and not wait until the last second.

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.

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 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 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.