Free and Open Source Software

My roommate installed Ubuntu on my laptop when I was in college. That was the start. Now it looks like this: https://xkcd.com/456/

Linux. I think I started playing with it around 2001. I was a computer nerd on high school and I wanted to be a hacker. I would be lying if I said that The Matrix wasn't a big factor. To this day I use black console with green text.

Like other people have said, I've used open-source software for decades without thinking about it, but what really made me think about it as a concept was when I got into Skyrim modding, and I saw the exorbitant subscription fees of Photoshop and then learned through that community about GIMP. Then, I started learning more about things like privacy and more tangible effects of corporate greed, and gradually switched to more alternatives.

However, I personally never tried a FOSS OS until the last couple months when someone on Lemmy talked me into trying Linux. I always thought it was only for people with high levels of technical skills, but it turns out there are distros that are extremely accessible to users like myself.

For me it was first VLC without really knowing what FOSS was, then KeePass while getting to know a bit about it, and finally Thunderbird. What did it for me was just how good and bullshit-free they were, especially in comparison to paid competitors.

Linux Mint. I was trying to edit a video and was struggling to get anything to work properly in windows. I was frustrated and looking for solutions on YouTube when I came across Mental Outlaws channel somehow. The rest is history.

Using linux as an alternative to windows and really enjoying it.

Gaim.

GIMP and Mozilla Browser were a couple of my early ones as a Windows user, but I probably saw those as worse, or at least less polished, versions of other software. Gaim (later Pidgin) was the one that first made an impression on me.

AIM was important software — it basically was social media to me at the time — and I'd stumbled into using third-party add-ons (for example, DeadAIM) for the official AIM client to add extra features and block the in-app ad banner. But it was always a cat-and-mouse game where AOL would try to block add-ons and the developers would have to work around that.

Gaim was refreshingly immune to all that stuff... it simply didn't support ads, and all its advanced features were built-in. That it supported other messaging protocols was a nice surprise too, and to this day has soured me on siloed, proprietary messaging apps. The GTK UI also looked and felt a little exotic on Windows XP.

When I finally moved to Ubuntu, having apps like Gaim, Firefox and GIMP ready to go made things pretty comfy.

Getting a free Ubuntu live CD back in 2007 when I was a teenager. We had the shittiest internet, I think it was like 512kbps ADSL, so it was really hard to download software. No one I knew at the time was into linux or open source, so I learnt about it all from that Ubuntu CD and the smaller programs I downloaded with it once setting it up. I learnt GRUB and dual-booted it on the laptop I had for school.

Apache. This was over 20 years ago. The web server that everyone seemed to be using was free to download and open source. That made a big impact on how I viewed free software, and encouraged me to use more of it.

I don't remember how I heard about it but you used to be able to order free Ubuntu disks. I got them to mail me one and I replaced Windows with it and never looked back.

Simply because I haven't seen it mentioned yet: 7-zip
But realistically VLC and Firefox

Firefox 1.0

Not only was it better than IE6, it was also free! Not sure how aware I was of the libre aspect initially, but around the same time I also dabled in (Mandrake? Mandriva?) Linux, which exposed me to GNU, GPL, and the idea of copyleft.

And then there was VLC.

I still remember how Firefox's tabbed browsing blew my mind.

Although I technically used OSS before (ie Firefox), Linux (Ubuntu) is what made me actually start caring about it.

I got pulled in after hearing the term "copyleft". Red hat 6 was out (version numbering scheme has changed since then). I was a teen and into skateboarding and punk so I was attracted to this legal document that used the system against the system. I became a Linux evangelist to fight back against Steve Ballmer and big bad Microsoft. Felt good to have a glimmer of hope.

Nothing, I didn't think much of it or cared if something was open source or not. It's when I started to become privacy conscious I started to care, though one program in my childhood that I actually thought was cool but not necessarily because open source was 7-zip - it's free winrar that worked better for me.

There really wasn't a specific gateway product, and I'm still using closed and open source solutions back to back.

User experience and user interface are more important to me than open source. The only consideration I have beyond that would be privacy & security.

For instance I've always used Firefox and rejected Chrome due to data privacy concerns, and would use a portable chromium installation if a website was inaccessible with FF. On the other hand side MS Office and Photoshop are vastly superior to libre office and gimp.

When it comes to applications I use once in a blue moon for a few minutes at a time, I'll usually go for FOSS, but moreso because it's free and the UI can be as ugly as it wants if I don't have to stare at it for hours on end.

And well, I absolutely despise Apple as a company, so using Android was pretty much without alternatives, after BlackBerry discontinued their OS.

My computer suddenly died when I was an unemployed student, about 12 years ago. I had no money for a new one or repairs, etc. It was pretty devastating.

Then I somehow discovered my city's local Freegeek, (the one in Vancouver BC) - I was able to buy an refurbished Ubuntu tower for $35. They showed me how to use it, invited me back if I needed help, and were generally super kind and helpful.

It was a very nice introduction to the world of open source. I had no clue such a thing as free software and OS even existed before then. Ive been using linux ever since, as much as possible.

Windows. More specially a netbook with vista, that ran so incredibly slow ot of the box that it pushed me to install linux. Technically i used Firefox before that, but that was when Firefox was the de facto standard in Germany, so i didn't care about FOSS.

My first contact to FOSS were probably Firefox, Open Office (before libre office existed) and Gimp.

I... is that a thing that people have?

I mean, maybe I'm too old, but I don't know of anybody in real life that actively thinks there is a "world of open source". People mostly just use software. Software is either good or bad. It's either monetized or it isn't.

Maybe I come from a time where a piece of software attempting to charge a fee was seen as a cute quirk, or the extra charge if you wanted a printed manual, but yeah, this doesn't make a ton of sense to me.

It was Mozilla for me back in 2000. I gradually replaced all the proprietary apps I was using on Windows with FLOSS alternatives and then finally made the mover to Linux around 2010. The only closed stuff I use now is an iPhone and I despise it.

Gimp, OpenOffice.org, VLC, Slackware, and on and on after that. Every flavor of Linux: RedHat, SuSe, Ubuntu, now on Manjaro and Endeavour.

Mhm my first FOSS was probably The Gimp two or so decades ago. Previous to that I used Corel Draw and Paint Shop Pro. Suse Linux on a CD followed soon after as a test, but it didn't hold me for long.

I just really wish I could answer 'Obsidian' 😓

For me it was a combination of factors: Windows has been going down the shitter for at least 10 years now, FOSS software has been getting better and better, and I've learned to use more FOSS tools as I grew tired of dealing with Windows.

If I had to point at one project that made me go "Wow, this is amazing", I'd say ffmpeg. Even in my Windows days, I've always enjoyed digital preservation, when I discovered ffmpeg around 2015 it was an eye opener, so many features, so many options, I've been using it on a daily basis ever since.

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.

I had been using some form of UNIX and some early GNU utilities for a few years by time Linux came out and had heard some rumblings about 386BSD (development started in 1989) via newsgroups, but it remained out of reach for me.

I heard about Linux (SLS Linux) being available late summer of 1992 and started saving for a 386, which I build later that year.

In the end, due to download limitations I started with HJ Lu's boot/root disks for Linux (floppy disk images), starting with kernel version 0.12 and happily living in the terminal.

Virtual terminals were the killer app that kept me solely on Linux for a long while. Being able to download on one terminal and code in a 2nd (I programmed a MUD for free dial-up Internet access for a local system) was amazing and far better than Windows 3.x during this time frame.

I started first in 2012-ish with Linux. That’s when I first heard of it, and decided to spin an VM with Ubuntu 12.04. Though initially I didn’t use it in real hardware for sometime, eventually I did install Fedora and been pretty happy ever since. Nowadays mostly use openSUSE and Arch.

Slackware Linux, on a bunch of floppies. Oh man, when did I get old?

Blender 2.9.3 LTS

Postfix! I worked at an E-commerce company that sent newsletters(spam) through shitty Windows SMTP servers. Looking for speed and some other neat things (DKIM and modify headers) I setup postfix on Debian and I guess this system is still running. Quickly after that I explored NGINX as a reverse proxy for yet again shitty Windows IIS webservers. This was my entry to open source and Linux in general.

For me, Blender was probably my very first introduction into FOSS. I was using it because it was free, but I also liked the concept behind having a useful software the people used everyday to make cool projects like movies and animated shows. I did a project on it in. What really got me down the rabbithole was Debian. I had come across it in computer class, and I really liked the interface. i did more research and came to love Debian for being a stable distro run by the community. From thereit's history.

Slackware. Just before I started college I was sent the list of baseline requirements for comp.sci classes. Windows 95 or Windows NT, Visual C++, and a serial connection. I didn't have the money for '95 or NT; I was still using an 80486 with four (just before moving on campus, I traded up to eight) megs of RAM and wasn't in a position to get a new box (though I did drop pretty much my entire discretionary budget for the next two years into a one gig hard drive, which got me all the way through undergrad). However, there was a BBS in my NPA called Monolith, which was basically a Slackware Linux box with two dialup lines running homebrew BBS software. The sysop let me download the boot, root, A, D, and N disk sets (one floppy at a time - it took weeks) and helped me set up a basic Slackware machine. Once I got up to school I was able to set up a serial connection (and later, talk the building into lighting up my floor's ethernet lines). The rest, as they say, is history.

I started with 4.3BSD on a VAX-11/750 in the mid 80s. At the time, you had to pay for a Unix license from AT&T, send a copy of the paperwork to UC Berkeley as proof, then they'd mail you a 9-track tape. (I think that was the process? I was just a lowly user on the system.)

Not exactly what we'd call "Free software", but after all that you did end up with the full source code.

For me it was Python and C development on Linux. (So Anaconda.) I was pretty impressed by how much you can do with free software. Before I would have thought scientists would use expensive proprietary software for calculations. Later I learned that they sometimes still do, but many write their own code using work from others in the field who released open source software.

Firefox and VLC on Windows for years, which just worked. Later XBMC/Kodi and fileserver which where s... on windows but, again, just worked on Linux. When Windows later on kept nagging for something I migrated to 100% Open Source and have been a happy camper ever since!

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.

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.

I can't even remember... It was probably when I first heard about Linux in the early/mid 90's. I got Slackware in 93 or 94 and fascinated by the idea in general.

Hell, if might even have started before that when I was first learning to read and read through our encyclopedia collection like bedtime stories (I was obsessed with reading anything in print once I learned how). I know that's how I learned about the internet.

First foss product I remember using was VLC, but what made me start seeking out Foss was F-droid with how I got tired of constantly trying to find something without unnecessary permissions, ads, or IAP.

That was what made me understand the true value of foss, and not just because something isn't paid with the intent of profiting doesn't mean it is worse. It can sometimes be much better and more respecting of your privacy with how hungry for telemetry companies are these days.

The first FOSS product I ever used would have been either Firefox or OpenOffice.org, back in ~2010. I also used to like VLC.

The product that got me to go almost exclusively FOSS, however, was Linux Mint. I installed it on an old ThinkPad that my uncle had given me in 2019, and I was immediately impressed that this twelve-year-old notebook with (at the time) 4GB of RAM and an Intel Centrino processor could now easily outperform my brand new HP (which ran Windows).

It was only about a year later when I installed Mint on my HP, followed by my old Acer (which had been on a shelf for the last two years), and most recently my 2007 MacBook (which I keep around because it's the only thing that can operate my scanner).

Likely not the best for merch: my first FOSS soft was DJGPP, in the DOS era. Tried to use BSD before that, but it was like 200 floppies, and never got it working.

The thing that fully sold me though, was installing some drivers on RedHat 5.1, and seeing how "they recompile themselves! 🤯"... so dunno, was it rpm? make? gcc? kbuild?... hard to tell now.

Next thing was getting a second PC, installing a bare bones system, going into bash, ls /bin, and going man [everything].

I might still have some "man bash" stickers somewhere, used to have them on a few laptops over the years.

• OpenOffice
• Firefox
• Thunderbird

Apache Web Server

For me those products are:

• Linux
• Firefox
• Bitwarden
• Libreoffice