I tried xubuntu when I was 14 on a live cd to get students admin access on our school laptops. Once I got my own machine, I kept it on windows 10 until it became unstable so I moved to Bunsenlabs, then Pop OS due to it’s dgpu. (Intel igpu, amd dgpu)

Linux didn’t exist until I was 25.

But are we talking earliest age, or length of time using it? I’ve been running Linux on PCs for over 30 years.

My dad had a Knoppix boot CD in a case with all the games, of course I messed with it as a curious child, I have no idea how old I was, but it was my first foray into the wonderful world of not Windows.

I first tried Linux Mint when I was 12, eventually changed to Ubuntu when I was 13 or 14 because I saw the Windows 11 copilot button, installed

Can totally relate, lol. Except I first tried Ubuntu at around 12 (at the time it was considered the best for beginners), then nearly 20 years passed until I saw the same copilot button pop up, uninvited, in my task bar. That was the last straw for me.

Now I run OpenSUSE as a daily driver.

I was 7 when I first properly used Linux. My dad somehow found a prebuilt which came with SuSE - I assume version 7 or thereabouts. It didn’t last long, sadly, before we switched over to Windows XP.

Then at age 14/15, I ran Ubuntu 10 as my daily driver on my netbook. Then #! for a bit.

Used Windows 7 and 10 until… I guess age 26/27 since that’s what we’re doing, when I switched to Debian full-time. (Via MX-Linux, which didn’t quite work out)

1997, it was a wonderous year 🥰 i was 16 at the time.

Linux came in big boxes with a large book and CD’s!

Around 2014 I had hacker phase so I’ve installed BackTrack(Kali Linux), ofcourse I didn’t knew a thing about Linux but hey it was a start :D

I think it was about year 2000 +/- I was about 23 yrs old… I’ve tried a most of the big distros, and was using Ubuntu for the longest time. Now it’s Mint I use…

I initially tried linux mint and ubuntu when i was like 13 on my laptop, which is almost 15 years ago now. At the time it wasn’t because i hated windows, but my monkey brain was just interested in it because it looked so much different. After i realized that i couldn’t just use all my windows programs like usual (and especially gaming wasn’t nearly as good back then), i quickly went back to windows. Fast forward to 2020, at this point i had started disliking windows mainly because all of it’s creepy questions when you install it, like wanting your handwriting information and all that, but at the same time i thought “well what can you do about it?”. Then i saw the LinusTechTips video about trying linux instead of windows 11. This was the first time i had actually thought of linux again in all those years. The video convinced me to give it a try and i started with PopOS. After a few months i moved to arch cause i liked the idea of customizing my distro more from the ground up. Stayed with arch for 2 years, then i got the distro hop virus. Tried a lot of them, fedora, opensuse, ended up staying on Void linux for over a year in total. Now i’m using NixOS and very happy with it, and i think i’m finally settling down on a distro. I know LTT gets a lot of flack for how they handled the linux challenge, but if it wasn’t for that initial video back in 2020, i would have probably never given linux another try. And with valve investing so much into improving wine and dxvk and all that, it was viable for me to switch as a gamer.

Mandrake 6, not quite twice as long since you were born?

about 20 years ago. Early 2000s I started messing around with Redhat and was suprised that a full OS that did most of the windows things was available for free. when Ubuntu gained traction I jumped on that and tried distro hopping a bit before landing aolidly on Debian derivatives as my linux of choice. I remember catching a ban in WoW because WINE was detected by their anti cheat for a while.

I have known about Linux pretty early on, roughly the age of 10 (almost 29 now), but didn’t get to have a lot of tech interactions. It wasn’t until around 2022/3 that I got Cybersecurity / DevOps certs (still can’t get a job) and switched to Linux. I have a couple Chromebooks that run Ubuntu Studio and Lubuntu, a tower that used to run Garuda (Arch) and an old Mac that runs CachyOS. I’m more into Arch distros, but the amount of space on each comp and some hardware quirks make it difficult to run my faves. I gave my wife the Strix but she doesn’t want to let me convert it to something other than the Windows 11 it runs. I’m still working on convincing her. Lol

I first dipped my toes in when I was probably around 14, messed with Ubuntu and damn small Linux but that was about it. I stuck with Mac as I didn’t enjoy windows and needed something “mainstream” back then. It wasn’t until apple made hackintosh’s somewhat obsolete and Microsoft started cramming AI into windows that I made the switch. I now run NixOS on my gaming rig and personal laptop

My first new computer was an Acer Aspire One netbook with Windows 7 starters. I quickly realized what “starter” meant and discovered Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Remix. The rest is history.

I started using Linux before you were born, but i also was 20, so you win😄