1995 I had a Viglen desktop Pentium 120Mhz and US Robotics 56K modem. I remember being naughty to get free dial up access to AOL and Compuserve. I remember getting away with it for like 2 years until actually I had to pay 10 bucks a month for honest access.
1998 I bought a Sony Vaio laptop Pentium MMX 266Mhz to go University. I first tried Mandrake Linux on it and I was never able to figure out how to get the USB ADSL modem to work with it. Out of the box everything else worked!
University then 1st job 2004 I was maintaining SUSE Enterprise with Kerio mail server and USB backups lol!! All the desktops were SUSE. So any problems, just quick reinstall as Kerio mail server was pure web based. Easiest IT support job ever as email was all they used. Worked pretty well alongside SBS 2003 for logins.
Sudden boom in MSPs popping up and never got chance to touch Linux as IT support was all Windows and Apple. Some clients did use Linux as web server instead of IIS or some client’s had developers would buy say Linux editions of DELL XPS. But majority of customers gone the way of O365, Azure, Onpremises AD, HP SAN then using Windows and Apple.
Career in IT Sales now. MSPs are loving selling leased lines and backup solutions where biggest monthly profit margins are. I’ve felt to better sell then should have technical knowledge background.
Shame Linux involvement work wise for me is no more. So now it is a hobby.
Somewhere around 1993-ish I had a first real job and went out and bought a brand new Midwest Micro Elite laptop. It was a beast at the time with 386DX and the 387 math coprocessor, ram and harddrive were both measured in MB at the time. The 486 line had come out, but they were crazy expensive in any kind of laptop and hard to get at the time, as it was I think I spent nearly $2,500 USD for that thing.
Any way, I wasn’t too thrilled with Windows 3.1/3.11/WfW etc and having to look at aftermarket ip libraries like cameleon, so I acquired a ‘real’ operating system. Technically not Unix, but a fully licensed, legal, legit nix-like OS by MWC called Coherent. I wiped the drive on my laptop and installed Coherent (from something like a dozen 3.5" floppy disks.
From there it was a slippery slope when I discovered Slackware in '95 since I had already broken any ties to DOS/Windows for that laptop. So I guess if it technically has to be a linux distro - I’ll blame Slackware!
While it wasnt my first linux experience i started the bulk of my linux journey with Ubuntu 11.04. I had to look up which version it was because i could only remember Natty Narwhal lol
I started Linux with RedHat and did not succeed to instal it. It was my graphic card who was not supported at the time. I changed my card for a Matrox card and try to install Debian 2.1 (yes it’s that old). It was a Cd set i bought in a shop. And it was the real start… The package manager at this time was dpkg with dselect. You had to manually edit resolv.conf to get some network and xorg.conf to get some graphical environment. It was fun and an intellectual discovery.
i guess it was mandrake, mageia then later pclinuxos, solydk**, manjaro** then now I have eos and rebornos,
thats the main line of my linux past.( left out a few )
Finally decided. My vanilla Arch broke after an update and Virtualbox went funny. Just go all Endeavour for speedy install. Fantastic 7 min install using online option.
Only kept to Arch to be eligible for support from their official forum. But have found more and more recently I get the answers I need by searching all Arch distro forums like here, Garuda, Manjaro, Arco etc. All the answers are very accessible. So no longer need vanilla Arch for support. So a combined knowledgebase out there.
Not to say I didn’t enjoy troubleshooting as it was fun, but almost sad I’m starting another new job and can’t focus more on my hobbies like this anymore
I was never inspired to learn Linux. On it since late 2013, still don’t wanna learn. I mean, we have a keyboard and a mouse/trackpad. We can write stuff and click on stuff. Learning phase over and done with. Just be awesome with the results you create with your computer, not by learning how to use it. That happens automagically along the way.
Well, let’s say it happens with me. Since I’m dabbling in Linux - particularly Arch - I’ve learned soooo so so much. If I wanted or not. And I am an end user. Not really interested in how shit werkz, no patience for explainifcations, I just want to get my shit done. And still there’s always a learning effect.
Since I dabble in Arch I prefer the terminal over the GUI and memorized even some of the most important commands. That’s the automagical learning effect I was talking about.
Is there such a thing? That would mean commitment to a form of permanence… most of those types stick to pencil (or other’s taking notes, and thus deniable…)
I was ordering a new Laptop for work and I was looking deep inside my 32 years of life and I was like bloody hell you have been looking at the same stuff for the past 25 years you had one macbook and since Windows 95 you have been looking at the same screen really…
I then start running a lot of VM and tried approx 50 different distros and I was like O no Linux is not for me I can’t. In fact I thought Linux was going backwards… (I’m not even joking).
I’m not very smart, but I like understand thing I don’t like to give up and I have no idea why but when the new laptop came on 1 min of owning it I just put a fresh Manjaro into it (I kind of liked Manjaro because of Pamac coming from windows it’s was easy)
Fast forwards I realize that the Plasma KDE make everything so much futurist and I was sold I got a second laptop did not even bother with windows either and voila 5 months later I only had Linux running.
Last week I still did not know anything about Pacman Yay and other stuff (terminal command i guess)… So I decided to delete every copy of manjaro and just install Endeavour, then I learnt all the Yay command and I did not need the GUI pamac anymore then I learn how to put the Bluetooth and then CUPS for printing! Etc…
Linux just give you knowledge I’m glad I took this path! Instead of the window confine box!
My first contact with GNU-Linux world was thanks to a guy who lives pretty near i live… He showed me Ubuntu and i wanted to install it in my computer there in 2007. It was my beginning in all this. Then Mint. Now endeavour.
Then Ubuntu server which I had on a dedicated server. I liked the update mechanism so much I tried Ubuntu desktop as daily driver. I liked that. Until I found Manjaro and eventually Arch. I think I learned the most about Linux using Arch.
Believe it or not! It was Windows!
Back in 1999 a brand new desktop with Win98 and all the Windoze problems.
I thought definitely there are other operating systems banks, factories, airlines, military use. I couldn’t think they can be working with this nonsense (I didn’t really know at that time that windoze home are the beta testers for windoze pro, and I didn’t like the idea of not being able to reinstall the same windoze on a new PC when the old one dies or becomes obsolete).
I searched and researched till I finally settled on Suse in 2000.
And since then, till 2013 (when I hit the EFI/UEFI issue), then back again like a month ago, tried several distros til I found EOS. Amazing distro.
Sure not. Over the past month I’ve installed many distros and reinstalled EOS several times.
But I’ll try to do a “new” installation on a miserable old 2 in 1 which has windoze now and I’m using it as my own cloud with Resilio. Better use it with EOS. Hopefully I can install.
Just be awesome with the results you create with your computer, not by learning how to use it. That happens automagically along the way. 
← this one. Cos that shite will make ya drink…
It has been over 24 hours. I think it is time for you to do another reinstallation.