163
So what did it take for you to go to Linux?
(kbin.melroy.org)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
I was starting college (comp.sci, natch) and a hard req for the program was "Your own personal computer, with an Ethernet card and an OS that had a TCP/IP stack for remotely accessing classwork." I didn't have a great deal of money (most of it was tied up in tuition and housing) and ethernet cards were expensive (I think I paid $140us for it at the time). I couldn't afford Windows and didn't have a warez hookup for '95. A BBS I used to call had Slackware disk images for download.
The rest, as they say, is history.