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I stumbled upon the Free Software world entirely by accident. It was around 1999. I was living with roommates and one of them started a Software Development course at his college. I had Windows 98 installed on my PC and an analogue TV Capture card that refused to work at full screen, even with all drivers updated and reinstalled!
One day, I saw my roommate playing around with a brand new system on his computer: Red Hat Linux. He used the command-line a lot, typing on a black-and-green terminal—but still, I was mesmerized. It seemed very easy to use, and he claimed all worked out of the box. No drivers necessary. I asked if I could try it on my own PC. He then revealed to me that it is free and no license key is needed—that last bit made the sale—no more tinkering endlessly just to get my PC to work without crashing every 5-10 minutes….
He burned me a copy of the CD (those were the 14.4Kbps dial-up modem days, so downloading another copy would have delayed me another day or two). I installed it alongside my Windows 98 and tried to see if everything worked—and it did! (well, except my modem, which was a WinModem. But that was easily fixed after searching the Internet using AltaVista Search in pre-Google days).
I started my journey with computers at the age of 13 back in the mid 80’s with a Commodore 64. I used it mostly for gaming, of course, but I even tried to program a bit in BASIC with it. I then moved to the PC world using DOS 1.0, and all through Window 3.1, Windows 95 (I even touched Windows Millennium Edition for a bit!), so I was no stranger to the command-line. I always liked to see how things worked under the hood, so I felt right at home with my new Linux-based machine. After two weeks, during which I made sure everything worked, even my TV Capture card worked better in Linux, I backed up my files, formatted my entire hard drive, and made the move to the Free Software world—and never looked back!
The first Ubuntu I installed was version 5.04 (back in 2005). I read up a lot about it in the Linux news sites. I had grown tired of KDE at the time and wanted to try something new. I have stuck with Ubuntu since then. I have tried a LiveCD version of Fedora now and then, but none of them were as usable and stable as Ubuntu. I also like the fact that all new applications come out with Ubuntu clients first (eg. Steam by Valve), the way it's set up out of the box with the most popular applications in each category, and the fact the primary user has to use the “sudo” command and is not allowed to log in as the root user by default. I think this strategy saves a lot of grief from inexperienced users. Another thing I love about Ubuntu, although controversial, is the Unity interface. It takes some time to get used to, especially for experienced Linux users, but once you get used to it, it is a cinch to use and prevents clutter on the desktop. From my experience, it is easier for computer illiterate people to understand, once you spend a few minutes to explain the basic use. They are so used to work with badly designed User Interfaces, it takes them a few minutes to understand how Ubuntu / Unity is simpler…
I have since moved a few of my friends, family members and even one of my customers, to Ubuntu—and they are a lot happier with their computer than they were before the move.