Free and Open Source Software

Signed up for Ubuntu free CD. Got 10.04 LTS. Was such an improvement from vista on a core 2 duo and 3gb ddr2. Only moved complete to linux in 2019 after years of tinkering with couple RPis and getting the hang of using linux.

@graphito Red hat Linux back in 99. Ran X11 Gnome with Metacity, bash and emacs. Still using Linux today. But Im on Arch with zsh, kde/plasma Wayland and NeoVim. Probably the only thing that I still use now from '99 is less 😃

I'm so old, when I started, software was either part of the operating system, or we had to get it for free, as source to compile it locally. Yes, there were commercial software packages for some applications, but most of the everyday stuff (editor, file browser, file transfer programs, multi-user online games and their clients) was open source. And many of us contributed, me included. I wrote Gobelin, an NNTP news reader/filter/aggregator, and Connector, a frontend for multi-user online games.

Ubuntu, maybe around 2007-2008.

I was starting college and got my first notebook. Up to that point we had only a desktop PC for all the family and this was the first time I could actually try things out without messing with my brothers’ stuff, so I eagerly jumped to try new things and format my notebook every 2 months after completely screwing something up.

The thing that hooked me up was the breath of fresh air in terms of customisation that a Linux distro offered compared to Windows. Funnily enough the mac OS style was my favourite so I eventually ended up buying a mac, but I always maintained a distro on bootcamp.

Stumbled upon Novell Suse Linux in the software section of Best Buy. That sent me down the rabbit hole. I actually got caught up in the world BSD specifically DesktopBSD. I was amazed by all the “free” software options.

Win Server. For real, I want to build a server around 2005. Someone showed me Windows Server 2003 or 2000 (I forgor) and I was like: "no way I would ever work like this!" Went home and tried out Ubuntu for the first time and was amazed.

"open source" is not a product, it means that you get access to the source code

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.html

Red Hat 6 on the front of a magazine in 2000 which was an interesting curiosity, and then a Fedora Core 2 live disc my university lecturer was handing out in 2004.

I've used a few open source programs before studying CS without knowing what FOSS was, but the time when I really got into it and started diving deeper is probably after installing Arch Linux

Xournal++

WWIV

For me ist was FreeCAD. From there to Linux and down the Rabbithole

I had used plenty of open source products in the past, but the first one I truly learned the "why it's important" is home assistant. Seeing the strong community and reading more about open source projects and why it's to everyone's benefit.

We can make a far superior, safer, and community first product.

Wow. I honestly can’t tell. I think it was ChromOS? Indirectly of course.

Years and years ago, I was really frustrated with windows on my tiny laptop, and I wanted something different. And I loved ChromeOS back then, but I couldn’t afford a Chromebook, and I was looking for something that had a similar interface.

So I looked online, and people were recommending Linux, but I already knew of Linux, as I had a terrible experience with Ubuntu a while before (it was using Unity, to give you a timeframe). But eventually, I found something, it was a post on Reddit by someone looking for something like me, something that would look like what chromous looked like at the time, that was as simple, and one of the best suggestion there was a distribution by the name of “SolusOS”, Specifically, the Budgie variant.

So, I installed it on my little laptop. I fell in love with it, the whole thing, the desktop, the project, Linux as a whole, And then they just kind of snowballed from there. Solus was my go to distro for years.

Now I’m stuck on a MacBook Air, on Mac OS, for many reasons, and I want something new. But even before that, when I had to give up on that laptop and Solus for various reasons, I used many others distros. And I really loved some. But I still miss my tiny laptop and Solus on it…

I miss this simple joy of just using my machine and it just working. I feel like, every piece of tech that is in my life, right now, to try and simplify it, to help me do things, is only making my life worse, and bothering me with stupid stuff at every turn…

Or maybe it’s because I just grew up, I became an adult, lots of things happened in my life, and I just miss how simpler things used to feel back then, maybe I just reflect that in my technology. I don’t know. But I miss it… a lot.

I think it was Okular. I was looking for a way of editing PDFs without ads, invasive software, or subscription based payments.

OpenFOAM. I needed powerful software to do CFD that was free, as in free beer, and found OpenFOAM. To run it on windows, the installation instructions first step was install linux on a vm then follow the linux installation instructions. I did that and started using the vm for other stuff until I found myself using the vm for most tasks, but kept using windows for gaming. To learn more, I got myself a pinebook, which replaced most of the usage of my vm. When windows decided to self destruct, I had learnt enough to install and configure arch with minimal help. Now, nothing can persuade me to go back.

OpenTTD. Sure, I had used android, but it was the first thing I consciously knew was open source and enjoyed.

DDWRT technically came first for me, and m0n0wall, but OpenSolaris is where I really started to use it.

For me it was probably Gimp and then Linux (specifically mandrake). I'm shocked I havnt seen mention of VLC yet though, as it's another one that gets use every day for me.

Linux and godot

Suse Linux 4.4

Linux

Fedora Linux, tbh

Suse in 1999.

First used Linux mint in 2007, was fascinated and frustrated at the same time with why things didnt work like on my windows PC, I now have a dedicated Linux Laptop (linux mint)

Vim and GCC.

I don't remember exactly anymore, but I guess... Firefox? And then Ubuntu after I got "serious" about it.