How did you get into GNU/Linux and Free Software?

I used windblowz when I was a child and till I was 20 or so.. win 98,ME,XP..
All I did with computers back then was basically gaming and some surfing on the net.
Then my pc stopped working and for a very long time I stopped using computers except in some rare occasions. I was no more interested in computers and had several other hobbies and interests.
I bought a laptop 4 years ago and at first I did appreciate windblowz 7 - I thought it was a good O.S ..
But then I started to learn more and more about computers and software and felt progressively more and more frustrated with windblowz.. No customization at all. Fragmentation and slowdowns no matter what you do.blue screen of death!!! Registry.... And above all MALWARE. I started to read and learn a lot about windows security and at some point I convinced myself that there is no such thing as security (not in windows anyway).
The thing that made me switch to gnu (at first it was Ubuntu) was security - I switched to gnu when I read on several websites that there were very few viruses or none in the wild for gnu/linux. The fact that there was no need for antivirus for there were no viruses was the key factor that made me jump..
Now I learned a lot about gnu and I can tell - security is only one facet: gnu is vastly superior to windblowz in every point!! Every single part of gnu compared to windblowz is gold!!
performance stability customization security etc etc etc ...

I tried many distros and used several. Of the non-free I tried, I liked Xubuntu the best (very fast, good looking and stable). I only used open source software and drivers on those.. Never installed proprietary drivers or applications (like skype or whatever).

Then a couple of months ago I read a book about R.M Stallman and that made me switch to Trisquel (I first tried gnewsense but didn't like it much).
I'm not going back - All software (I wish someday bios and firmware too) must be libre, 100% libre!!!

p.s - I made my trisquel setup look exactly like Xubuntu, which by the way takes 2 minutes of your time, being that gnu is a wonderfuly powerful yet simple to use and customize O.S

ciaouzzz

My dad found out about "open source" and installed Fedora Core 4 (which, at the time, was the latest release of that system) on our computers.

Years later, I found the FSF's articles while looking for information on the GNU GPL, IIRC. I started agreeing with the FSF due to problems I faced with proprietary software, mostly on the OpenPandora (which I used frequently at the time), that I knew were only because the software was proprietary. Particular examples:

- Game Maker (I wasn't able to port a game I had written with it to the OpenPandora.)

- Skype (This was before the OpenPandora had Android running on it. I wasn't able to chat with a certain group of people in many situations because Skype didn't work on the OpenPandora.)

- Lode Runner: The Legend Returns (This was one of my favorite games, and I had a lot of trouble trying to play it even on Windows computers, but found it almost impossible to play it on the OpenPandora.)

I then had the same experience in the opposite direction, surprisingly: there's a proprietary game with binaries available only for the OpenPandora and GP2X that I really liked. Of course, I wasn't able to play it on any other computer, even though it would be able to work perfectly fine if I just had the source code. I eventually started seeing proprietary software as unethical, and gradually moved off of it.

I saw an ad for Ubuntu a little over a year ago, and started using "open source" for practical reasons. Not too long after using Ubuntu full-time (Chock-ton with a lot of proprietary software- Skype, Steam, the likes) I listened to an RMS lecture... I agreed with it mostly, but didn't consider software freedom a big deal and continued using Ubuntu and Steam. Then about a month later I listened to a couple more RMS lectures, and was convinced. Then I started using purely Free Software- Replicant on my phone, and Parabola on my computer for a few months until switching to Trisquel.

Are there ads promoting ubuntu? On televison? woww, that's nice!! In Italy, where I live, almost nobody has ever even heard about gnu (be it ubuntu or whatever). I had an exam on Informatics at the university (Foreign languages and literatures) and I can tell - nowhere in those 2000 pages of material was gnu even mentioned excluding one little sentence that goes something like this: "Linux,based on unix, an OS funded on the freeware philosophy, that is to say, it is gratis" !!!!!!!????!!!!
I swear I laughed histerically for 5 minutes..
Also ther was a lot about windblowz, google search and google mail (and we are talking about a freaking university here..)
A lot of ignorance and misconception.. It makes me sad..
:(

Like many people I didn't really know what GNU was for some time. I'd heard of Linux and open source and assumed that Linux was a standalone OS like Windows, which I was using at the time.

I started reading Slashdot and noticed a few users called it "GNU/Linux". I recall being confused, so I searched GNU to find out what it was. The GNU.org website said something about a GNU OS, which was even more confusing, and then I found out what the technical distinction was, the naming controversy, the GNU philosophy, etc.

I found the philosophy inspiring so I decided to install as many free programs on my Windows installation as possible. Eventually when I finished school I dual-booted Debian because I heard it was almost entirely free software and was widely used. I installed Trisquel a few months later. I think because I was used to most of the programs because I used them on Windows (Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice) the transition was really wasy. I've tested a few other distros, mostly free ones, but Trisquel is nice and I haven't been too bothered mucking around with it so far.

After installing GNU/Linux I never really booted back into Windows, so after six months I backed up my data and deleted the partition.

Andrew

it would be nice if more people shared their experience - it is always interesting to understand what makes a person change his mind or open his mind..

As some of you might now, I had kind of a phase of resignation the last couple of months, but I think I overcame it meanwhile and I will also explain this after talking about my beginnings with Gnu/linux.
Well, basically I started using Gnu/Linux at the age of 13. I had a short look at opensuse but nothing worked and I removed it finally.
After that I discovered this very strange distro called "ubuntu" talking about community and offering gratis copies - real, physical copies! That's right: back then, you could order as many ubuntu cds as you want, for free. A friend of mine ordered 50 cds; it took several weeks but well, he got every single one of them!
So yeah, I ended up using ubuntu while trying out all kinds of distros... mandrake, redhat, gentoo ... man, those were long, comfortable nights...
I knew almost nothing about software freedom and certainly nothing at all about Gnu. The system was attractive for me from a purely practical point of view.
At some point I switched to Debian, that was like five or six years ago.
It was a RMS speech i listened to by random which got me on the free software track and to trisquel.
I wiped out my harddrive from proprietary software, threw away my cellphone and just took a breath of fresh air instead.
Well, it wasn't easy since then.
The time here told me how far we are from achieving a good digital society, and for private reasons i finally gave in and bought a smartphone as well as a tablet pc. There was a very important person living far, far away who has almost no knowledge about computers and stuff and I knew the trouble replacing skype or doing some kind of talking without free software, and from this distance and with such a non-technical person i decided that there is no way but to use it - at least not with the amount of effort i was willing to afford.
The world of those devices is penetrated with proprietary software but everybody is using them nowadays... i kind of felt out of the modern era without them and they attracted me from a practical point of view.
So while me pc stayed free, i accepted to use all kind of crap on the mobile devices, with some subtile feeling of disgust while doing it.

Then there was some trigger recently... i don't remember properly. I think some app i wanted to install once again presented a huge list of things it wanted to controll over my phone.
That was the point when I said: To hell with this bullshit!
And somehow i found back to my old habits...

for now, i cleaned the disk from proprietary apps (well, at least to the extent this damn thing allows me to do it) and use f-droid instead. since i never had many voice conversations with the person i mentioned i finally found an easy way to replace skype with a free software messaging app and it works just fine ... it works way better than skype in fact.
I'm looking for a solution or some kind of compromise with my phone.

It will take some time, then the distance between me and this person will be gone. This will be the day when I throw my phone out the window again and heck, i will somehow manage to get replicant on this tablet...
So yeah, i'm somehow back in business again!

I installed my first GNU/Linux system (Red Hat 9) in 2003. It was the system chosen for in the GNU/Linux rooms of my university (in France). I had just entered the computer science department at that time and wanted to know more about GNU/Linux. I had no idea of the free software ideals behind GNU. The year after (in Denmark), I installed a Mandrake 10.1. However none of those two systems were my main ones. I kept on booting on Windows.

To really understand GNU/Linux's internals, I installed Gentoo (with an Xfce desktop) in early 2005. This time, I was really using it as my main system and it lasted for two or three years. During that period, I learned a lot about the free software movement. I must have read most of https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ at that time. I even had the chance to attend the "Copyright vs. community" talk by rms (in Italy). I then tried most 100% free software systems. The ones I used more than a semester were Gobuntu (which has never been recommended by the FSF though), gNewSense, BLAG and Trisquel that I have been using since 2009. I first had the chance to have a laptop with a Wifi card that did not require any proprietary firmware. I then had to buy a Wifi adapter. I recently bought four identical ones for other peoples' laptops I install Trisquel on. Those are my family computers. My parents have been using Trisquel (on a desktop machine) for almost as long as I have. It works like a charm (what is convenient since I live in Brazil and my parents in France!).

I have been a member of the main French free software association (the April) since 2008, of Trisquel since the associate member program started (I am #15), and became a FSF member one year ago. I also gave some rms-like talks about free software in my current university in Brazil (every semester) and in the university in France where I did my PhD.

i used m$ windows since i was 6
then 5 years later i discoverd this thing called "linux"
and installed it
i used ubuntu for about a year untill i click on this youtube video(rms):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFMMXRoSxnA
and finally understood what the thing called gnu was
and about software freedom

so i switched to fedora(so it would work with my wifi card)
then debian(with a non-free wifi driver)
then spent all my money on a new computer
and installed trisquel 7 LTS

now my only problem is all my family use macs and iphones :(

JadedCtrl asked:
How did you get into GNU/Linux and Free Software?

How could you get into GNU/Linux and free software?

Well, the answer is: that you don't and you can't!

I would rephrase it : to read about, to find out, to Discover, to expose, word of mouth, a presentation, etc, etc.

But to get into?
Dammit that sounds masochist, painful and agonizing to try to get into an OSI.

Anyhow, I'm drunk and have a Happy New Year everyone!!! Tequila blues baby!!

It was begin with gimp and inkscape that i used in Windows XP. I read the GPL in those two softwares, but didn't really understand what is GPL about until after I found Ubuntu CD from my friends in 2008. That was my first experience with a full GNU OS. I began to read gnu.org and fsf.org and became agree with their philosophy. From Ubuntu, I moved to Arch, Parabola, Debian, and then Trisquel.

Sadly, I'm forced to use Ms Office and some Windows only GIS software for my works, so I dual-booting Trisquel with Win 8.1. That is my problem now.

This is my story how I get GNU/Linux Trisquel 7 mini.

I think it started by me where I was about 8 years and try everything with my windows (95 or 98 didn't remeber exatly) and my system crashed so often, they at child I could install my operation system.
Until I was 16 years old, I never testet much gnu/linux operation, because I didn't hear much good about it. My farther test it, but he doesn't survive the step from windows to gnu/linux, so he fall back to windows.
At the school a teacher told the history about gnu/linux with Stallmann, but I say some big mistaks, because he is also a windows user. On this day I heard R. Stallmann was a hero, so I wanted to test his work. I testet OpenSuse, Ubuntu, Debian, Gnewsense, Fedora, ArchLinux and maybe a few more. ArchLinux was the first gnu/linux system that I use over one month.
At the end of ArchLinux I crashed the system, because there was no rules with non-free software so I tried to install steam and other games and then it was over, because my system was gone. After ArchLinux I installed windows, but every weekend I try a other operation system, to get my goal. For me I wanted the change, because I wanted the security of my data (Snowden).
At the end I found Trisquel, at start I didn't know what exatly full free software was, but I had the hope, that only free software would protect my system.
Today I have my Trisquel 7 mini system for over 2 weeks, for me it is hard to be use only free software, because I am really new on this fact, but I will learn it.

I know this topic is a little old, but I wanted to contribute as well.

I used Windows exclusively all through my childhood up until I was about 21. I had a friend who had made the switch to GNU/Linux and would talk to me about the FSF and why free software was so important, but I used to shrug it off since "the world runs on Windows".

It wasn't until I had to deal with MS "customer service" that I realized how horrible proprietary software really is. I had built a new computer and wanted to port my original Windows Vista install to the new machine. After I was unable to activate the OS with my previous key, I called MS to ask what was wrong. I was told I would have to shell out another $100+ for a NEW copy of Windows because I had changed my hardware.

This infuriated me to no end, and from that day forward I was determined to figure out this whole GNU/Linux/Libre software thing. Now that I have given up proprietary software I feel free. I can change whatever hardware/software I want and don't have to answer to anyone.

As far as Trisquel, I've only been using it for the last year. Before this I used Arch because of its customization and tiny footprint (I later used Manjaro because it gave me Arch without the finicky install process). However I made the switch to Trisquel because I could never shake the feeling that I was "cheating" by not using a fully libre operating system. I also know about Parabola GNU/Linux, but after trying it I decided I wanted an OS that got out of my way and allowed me to work without having to constantly check dependencies and "fix" every upgrade.

this topic is never old tdlnx - great thing you ditched winzozz. well..great thing we both ditched that joke! cheers

My story
Brother played with Slackware and Redhat late 1990. 2000-2001 I ran Gentoo for a year but later back to Windows 2000. Dont remember why Gentoo. I learned some basics there. Have played a little with Ubuntu over the years but only testing in VMs and on computer I wasnt using. Some time running a file server with Ubuntu. 2006 got a Macbook. 2012 a Macbook Pro.

Two years ago I realized the split between open source and free software, the penny dropped, but the picture has got clearer over time. How open source thinking is a compromise that will lead to Linux own death. The Linux proprietary compromising will just expand. Last summer, 2014, I got a new machine and installed Trisquel 7 test release and Gnome 3.12. Same install still running. I have taken the decision to run Trisquel or other dists that is freedom preserving and supporting software. This was one of my hard decisions to do but I have now got a better focus in life. I have realized more that freedom is and it comes together with responsibility. I have used Apples laptops for years and its very easy to use but how they control their users, weird closed functions that locks out users and work against freedom I don't want to support them anymore.

I'm not running 100% libre. Still have Flash just in case but included HTML5 Video Everywhere addon included in Icecat works very well but not always. Also some times running old close source games.

Commentary
For many years I have always had a feeling that GNU+Linux is the way to go. Decentralized but working together. Everyone use and many contribute to the tools that they use. Everything is open and nothing is hidden. People isnt afraid of showing what they have created. Helping them self and others for a better world. I think GNU+Linux and freedom thinking today is so small is because how society today is built by paying some money, remove some freedom and it works (Computers, todays pre built houses, pre made food, ....... - CONSUME). GNU+Linux is responsibility and that means people have to choose where to focus. I think people dont take the decisions, dont know that their is alternatives, dont know the consequence of the today crowded/not taking decision road, do not know what freedom is (Government dont what their citizens to know what that is), just confused in this time with so much false information (Media) and just give up and work and then go home to drink or other pain relieving activity.

Accepting some proprietary software here and there will lead to a dead end. Compromising freedom for comfortability is not the way to go. Vendors today sell "Linux hardware" sell hardware that depend of proprietary drivers when there is freedom supporting alternative, example wifi cards, and I dont get it how the vendors think.

It's great that GNU+Linux today grows with all the Windows and Mac users but many of them dont know what software freedom is and the back side of closed source software. They will happily install proprietary software, just as I have done ***. I think the compromise to use proprietary software because it works gives the same good boost but disastrous long term result is the same as debt based economy. The economy is unnatural with up and down with a big crash in between. One big crash is now close.

*** I didnt now freedom alternatives. Maybe proprietary supporting dists can add information that the software is proprietary and give recommendations for free/libre alternatives. Skype recommend alternative Jitsi example... Integrate freedom information like this in their software center. Maybe add a warning when the users want to install proprietary software and make a list of all proprietary software running on the system.

Because of how the development of the world now looks people have to take the hard decisions. If people do not take decisions but just be in the flow of the global world the future will be a combination of the books Brave New World and 1984.

nicely said garsmith! +1

Just so you know, I made a thread on a similar subject almost two years ago.
https://trisquel.info/en/forum/why-did-you-switch-or-use-free-software-0

Discovered GNU/Linux back in 1995/96 and started out with slackware on disks! (Got my first connection to internet @ home in 1995).
Was exploring this alternative as an option to my Windows and OS/2 box. Liked a lot the way I could increase my knowledge by reading the source code, play with the OS (configurations) and the easy of use (CLI) that goes with the OS. During the years I've hosted my own dns,mailserver,web, CS (Counter-Strike) etc. Started our own local GNU/Linux user group etc. Geee ... it's probably 20years now since my first GNU/Linux installation. Still enjoying a lot because of many aspects and the ability to learn a lot from the GNU/Linux community is still one of those.