What was your path to Kubuntu?

[Feathers McGraw]

Very few laptops come with any GNU / Linux distribution installed. Unfortunately, it's extremely unlikely that you will have exposure to anything but Microsoft software during your school years. Although the number of people using GNU / Linux is large and growing, we're still a heavily diluted minority.

So the question is, how did you find Kubuntu? I've often wondered how so many people came to be here.



My own path started with a group project at university (I studied Civil Engineering). I was complaining about the absolute nightmare that is combining 5 different Microsoft Word documents into one seamless volume. A friend who was doing Computer Science overheard, and suggested LaTeX as being brilliant for large projects due to its ability to place images in "floats", eliminating the need to re-shuffle 100s of pages after adding a paragraph somewhere earlier in the document. It was too late to use LaTeX for that project, but I tried it out and didn't go back - every piece of coursework I submitted since that day looked a lot more professional.

Researching LaTeX had led me to discover it was "free software". Whatever this "free software" stuff was, I thought, it was great and I wanted more. In addition to this, LaTeX is installed on Windows using MiKTeX, which requires a download of several GB. Something I read told me that when LaTeX is installed on Linux or MacOS it requires a much smaller download, since many of the files required are already on the system.

So...I looked up Linux, and saw that it was good.

I tried Linux Mint (Cinnamon, I think), but got frustrated by being directed to guides for Ubuntu. So I tried Ubuntu, but didn't like Unity... which is when I tried Kubuntu. It stuck

My one regret is that I didn't make the switch sooner - apparently there's free printing in the Linux lab at The University of Surrey



Would love to hear your stories!

Feathers

[Snowhog]

Pre-2007. I was still running Windows 98 on a Sony VAIO laptop. I don't actually remember who/what was my muse for Linux. Regardless, my dad purchased, as a requested birthday gift, the many-CD set of Debian 3.0 Woody. While visiting him, I made my first attempts to install/use Debian on that Sony. Long story short, it was 'less than satisfactory'. Yes, I did get it installed, and (mostly) working in a dual-boot configuration, but it was painful, and due to what I eventually came to believe to be a 'hard-wired' predatory routine within the Sony, dual-booting was only 'one-way'. I quickly gave up.

In 2007 I 'tried again', this time with Kubuntu Linux (Edgy Eft). Again, I don't remember where/how I came across Kubuntu (could have been Distrowatch). Why Kubuntu? Because it had a look to Windows, which was what I was very comfortable with. I began with a LiveCD. I liked what I saw and how it worked. The rest, as they say, is history.

[Robtygart]

Mine started with my laptop running Vista, it always ran hot and very slow, instead of looking for a new computer I started looking at Linux, My first Linux OS was Mint+KDE, the next Mint did not come with KDE, so my next find was Kubuntu 11.??. While I was looking at live CDs (Mint) and showing my dad, he backed up his files and hit the install button. Thats before we really knew about how much free opensource software there was.
...

[tek_heretik]

Lots of distro hopping (mid 00's)...Mint (2010)...Netrunner (2011)...Kubuntu (2012).

Edit: I didn't know we were supposed to start from the beginning of time, lol...WinDOHS 95 (breifly), 98 (with and without IE, actually had both versions), WinDOHS 2000 (only WinDOHS I liked), eventually XPooPoo...see above, lol.

Edit 2: XPooPoo was the beginning of Microslop's FrankenOS trend, stitched together on the operating table, dressed in Fisher Price clothes, apply 10,000 volts, declare "IT'S ALIVE!", throw open the lab doors to unleash its terror on the unsuspecting public and IT personnel.

[claydoh]

here is the long story trimmed down a lot:


I got my first ever PC back in June of 1998. I was using a program, Adobe PhotoDeluxe, that came with my printer. It touted the fact that it supported a ton of Photoshop filters, many of which were free!




Now, back then, internet search was not quite the same as it is now. So searching for "free photoshop filters' included mostly warez links. I jumped right into that dimly lit corner of the 'net, unfortunately, usenet and alt2600 in particular. However, there was a decent sized segment of that community who promoted and practiced the ideals of helping the noobs learn how to do things. When the wonderful OS BeOS released a free version, it sparked a buzz everywhere, and I actually ran that as my first non-MS OS in a dual boot setup.


Eventually (2000/2001), mutterings and chat about this Linux thing becoming usable surfaced, and someone posted that MaximumPC magazine had included a free copy of Mandrake Linux 7, on one cd. Downloading the iso on dialup was out of the question, even more so if one wanted the official images from Mandrake (3 or 4 cd's?) so I bought that magazine, and installed it. It wan't perfect, but it was easy to install and had more actual functionality once set up (useful software) compared to BeOS that I quickly jumped onto Linux to check out. Bought Mandrake 7.1 locally, but it was utter crap to install and set up, for some reason.


The idea of a single-cd, simpler-to-install Linux distro was not a common one back then. Most all required multiple disks so you could choose what you wanted to install, plus 3 kitchen sinks. However, the one disk concept was coming along. I found ELX, Lycoris and a bunch of other young projects that made some basic choices in software selections and made installations a lot easier. After trying them all, as well as any other distro I could get my hands on, I chose Lycoris as my main Linux OS. They tamed the KDE of the day into something useful, with useful choices of stock programs. For example, a bone stock KDE in that day had programs in the start menu that were usually 3 layers deep, often as many as 5 or 6!! Plus 2 or 3 text editors, every terminal emulator that ever existed, and the like. Lycoris and a lot of these new distros were patching KDE to make the menus a lot less deep, as well as other things to make things more user friendly.


In February of 2002, I finally jumped full-time to linux with Lycoris.


After Lycoris died was bought out by Mandriva on '05, I did some major distro hopping (I was having a hate-hate relationship between me, my hardware, and mandake/mandriva still, despite a free gold membership), and while checking out Ubuntu, I quickly discovered the Kubuntu project. While Ubuntu did a huge amount in making Gnome a good desktop, I found I still hated it found it did not fit me well. And Kubuntu just rocked the KDE, taking what other KDE distros were doing and doing it better.


Aaaaad here we are in 2013.

[Feathers McGraw]

Lots of distro hopping (mid 00's)...Netrunner (2011)...Kubuntu (2012).

Interesting that Blue Systems is behind both distros!

The idea of a single-cd, simpler-to-install Linux distro was not a common one back then. Most all required multiple disks so you could choose what you wanted to install, plus 3 kitchen sinks.

Check out you old timers BeOS was released when I was 1 year old...

It's strange to think of computers having "just come out", we got our first desktop at home before I was old enough to know we hadn't had one before, if that makes sense.

However, I do remember installing Doom with my Dad, which was on about 6 floppy disks... I'm glad things are easier now!

[PaulW2U]

So the question is, how did you find Kubuntu? I've often wondered how so many people came to be here.

For me, PC wise it was Windows 3.11, 95, 98 & XP then Ubuntu 10.04, 10.10 & 11.04 with several attempts at trying to get Linux and BeOS working around 2000 or 2001.

Ubuntu 11.04 was the first release to use Unity as a default but I couldn't understand why it was so buggy and ugly. Although the subsequent switch to Gnome 3 in Ubuntu 11.10 produced a better version of Unity I had already looked elsewhere. For various reasons I ddn't consider that either Xubuntu and Lubuntu were what I wanted to use on a desktop so I chose Kubuntu. I had one or two problems for which I couldn't find an answer so a Google search led me here. I've been using Kubuntu ever since and just this weekend I installed 13.10 on a spare laptop, removing Vista at the same time.

I still use Lubuntu on a netbook and have Ubuntu 12.04 available but it sees little use these days, Windows 7 now sees even less use.

I've dabbled with Fedora, openSUSE, Debian and PCLinuxOS but I have always found the various *buntus the easiest to install and configure.

[NickStone]

Right my turn.

I got my first PC (Windows based PC that is) in 1996 with Windows 95 then bought a new PC a few years later with Windows 98. Received a CD from a PC magazine which along with Windows software also included Red Hat 5. Due to limited system resources I couldn't install any GUI's so just had "Linux". Got rig of it and went back to Windows.

A few years later I started to read up on Linux and got very excited about it downloaded a copy of Mandrake 9.0 (on 3 CD's). Duel booted that with Windows 98 but was starting to prefer Mandrake to Windows.

Not long after that something happened which I'm not prepared to talk about and I had to give up my PC (with Windows and Mandrake) for a few years. Then in 2008 I was given an old Dell desktop PC which had Windows XP on it. The following year I bought a PC magazine (for the software CD) and on it came Ubuntu 9.04. Tried to install it but would not install so I downloaded latest version of Ubuntu (which was 9.10) and then discovered Kubuntu, Xubuntu and Lubuntu which gave me the chance to try them all.

To date due to Canonicals' direction I am no longer using Kubuntu (or any Ubuntu based distribution) and have gone with Debian (Wheezy) with KDE on that old Dell desktop. Also have Manjaro on an old Dell laptop.

[Frank616]

I got fed up with the increasingly onerous EULA's that Windows was foisting on me. I also needed to install a new OS on several desktop machines that I needed for my small business, and I was unwilling to sign my life away to XP's insistence to being tied to one machine. I usually bought used machines, and wanted to be able to move my OS as I upgraded my hardware. For over 20 years I was a heavy WordPerfect user, and I knew that Corel had released a Linux with support for WP8 for Unix. Never did use WP8 for Unix much, as it was too old, as was Corel Linux, but it did lead me to Xandros 1.0 - 4.0. Xandros later sold out its users, so I tried SuSE, Fedora, and finally landed on Kubuntu, where I have stayed since 8.04 or thereabouts. I've been 100% Linux since then, having run WP8 Win under an emulator for a while (Win4Lin 5/9) until I finally switched to OOo, and now LO.

Frank.

[notabug]

I seriously don't remember how long I've been 'trying' Linux distros, but I do know the first live CD I ever tried was Knoppix. I'm pretty sure my process of distro hopping has been going on for 10 year or more. It's just too bad that I don't retain more of what I learn. Anyhow, I spent a good bit of time with MEPIS, which was my first serious exposure to KDE. I never could find any attraction for Gnome, or for any other window manager besides KDE. From MEPIS, I flip flopped from Mint KDE and Kubuntu until I finally settled on Kubuntu at around verion 10.10 or 11.04. I still dual boot with Windows, but I do spend a lot of time with Kubuntu and I follow this forum a couple times a day. Thanks to so many people at KFN who continue to support the rest of us with their knowledge and patience.

[vinnywright]

Hummm I believe it was around 2000 when mom gave me her old home desktop an Aptiva 150Mhz-CPU-intel copermine (overclocked to 180)64Mib RAM(72 pin SIM's I punched up to 90somethingMib's) and light speed 128 graphics , it ran windows 95 [HISTORY] mom started with computers working for the senses burrow in DC doing data entry with punch cards ,,,, later she became a programmer for the DOD-Navy, I can remember her taking me to work in the late 60's early 70's and showing me the hole rooms full of real to real magnetic tape mane frames and how they would change tapes to finish loading the program and how the room had to be cooled to keep them from over heating bla bla bla ,,,,she retired a GS13 computer programmer specialist analyst ,,,,,,,,when she gave me that Aptiva she sead it had more computing power than that hole room full of main frames ,,,,,,,LOL[/HISTORY]
I wound up putting windows 98 on it and it didn't do to bad . >cut to 2002-3< I have been seeing things on the Internet about this linux stuff ,,,,and it's free Ooooo I get a new box a HP-x something designed for windows ME I think it was a 600Mhz CPU with 256Mib RAM , and finding Slackware was the longest running distro I chose it ,,,,,I think it was ver.8 and as @claydoh has sead it was a text based installer with several CD's for the different package sets (.tgz) I fought and fought with it untill I had under submission ,,,well some what .
then I started reading about these "live cd's" well lets try them out ,,,,,Fedora,Manderva,PC-linux,DS,Scientific,,,,,,,Ultimalinux Humm based on Slackware my old friend/nemeses ,,,,,,, yes I sead Ultima not Ultimate this ran good on the hardware and it was all pre-configurde and had multi media codecs as well ,,,,,,but it was a one man show and soon dyed out ,,,,,I liked KDE by now and Ubuntu seams to have a large package data base ,,,,,,,SO Kubuntu gets tried ,,,,,,,,,I like it , it was ver.8.04 I think , I soon wind up hear in 2009 and have been hear ever since

VINNY

[bsniadajewski]

I've been using PC's all my life, starting with a Tandy 1000SL in '86. A Packard Bell with WfW 3.11/DOS 6.22 and later Win95, a Dell (XPS450) with Win98, another Dell (8200) with XP, and now a MicroExpress model that I've changed everything on except the MB/CPU and memory. In terms of distros i started with Mandrake (very short-lived), then for a while I used Suse 9.3 I got at Best Buy back in '06 when I still had dial-up. I did some hopping around with Kubuntu (6.06), Ubuntu, Mint, PCLOS, OpenSuse, Mageia/Mandriva before settling on Kubuntu as my everyday distro currently dual-booting with Windows 7 (previously Vista, had no major problems with it).

[67GTA]

Slowly going insane dealing with Windows ME BSOD's, and a self extracting email virus. Found Knoppix DVD in PC mag and was amazed. Then it went something like: Mandrake, SUSE, Fedora, Debian, Mepis, and then Ubuntu. Hated Gnome DE, and read about Kubuntu. Been here since 2005. Sometimes I miss KDE3 :-( Occasionally I still revisit openSUSE which left a good impression, but the package management drove me insane.

[Qqmike]

Home PC user since 1981 (IBM PC from Entre Computers, some $3,000). Doing professional work (business consulting, professor-ing, some gov't contracting work, self-employed, etc.). At the time, like many people, I just assumed I had to have and use Microsoft systems--the operating system and MS Office Pro. Add to that some anti-virus software, a defragmentation package (PerfectDisk), and such, and I recall the software outlay kissing a thousand dollars USD. AND, I felt running MS was not so easy or automatic--like everyone, I experienced occasional glitches, bugs, BSODs, and subtle problems would arise; not trouble-free IOW.

OK, so I'm saying money was a factor, especially as I moved out of the professional work; and hassle was a factor. I was told Kubuntu looked like Windows, it was free/free, came on a bootable CD, and I could dual boot with XP. I was sold on Kubuntu, 2005. Became fascinated with bootable OSs and with GRUB Legacy--a new hobby interest, to boot (pun intended).

And here I remain.

[woodsmoke]

Data input suprevisor for my ship with the ENIAC.

Did one of the first "statistical" MS's in the U.S. about plant ecology using the old TI calculator, not the 99a! lol

Timex Sinclair

C-64 full bore RAM expansion hard drive, etc. president of the local C-64 club(2nd largest in the U.S. at the time). Use it to run a business and publish books, both self plublished and for contract.

A primitive IBM with the green screen, can't remember which but a 286 type machine, for school but still used the C-64

Met a disabled woman who built her own Win2000 computers from scrap which insipred me.

An XP machine and when first online i saw a "male enhancement" product called the ISP and they joked that yep....that is Microsith's test to see who is stupid enough to click it for their future adblocks, etc. told me to use what they used, MYIE2, that was the beginning of my long path of utter contempt for Microsith.

Met the Johnnieman, of future history fame who actually showed me how to assemble a computer in his business while dealing with customers and selling online at the same time!

I purchased the Win 98, Win2000, and the XP cds.

Started donating computers with 98 on them

My second boy, the astronomer, introduced me to Linux and I said that it was "not ready for prime time" because a) it wouldn't install, b) it would do printers, c) the wordprocessor was ...weak...

Later I ran across Xandros and never looked back.

Donate many, many computers with Xandros on them.

After Xandros went belly up I embarked on "rolling my own" mainly with KDE and Ubuntu and perchanced on PCLos because I bought a RETURNED computer tower to Wal-Mart.

(As much as the ultra-libs and smarter than thous DETEST Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart has actually tried several times to sell Linux boxes and lappys., talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face! lol )

Was literally banned from the PCLos forums because I was CORRECT in a post when everybody else was wrong. (Kinda says something about the much vaunted "tolerate all views" that Linux people prattle on about.

Was invited to be a "developer" on another Linux which, for quite a few reasons, mainly health problems of the devs, never quite made it, although it did make a full release.

If the main developer had not "just left" with absolutely not a word, then I would probably have stayed on, but he just left people hanging, rather like...

Xandros...

So I then spent a year or two with distros like #! and a couple of minimilast things.

Went back to the distro but basically made an ass out of my self by posting, again, stuff that was correct, but not "acceptable" in the Linux world view and left for the good of the distro and because I really had developed a few friends there and they didn't need the grief.

I had tried Kubuntu several times because I could see the potential in it, but it always crashed, and that was on very nice systems upon which other distros ran fine.

Basically went with a very minimalist distro for a while and fiddled a lot with #! again.

A friend contacted me and suggested that I try Kubu and join the forms...

told me to PLAY NICE!!! ....

and, unless R.Daneel Olivaw sends a distro back to me through the beltways, here I'll stay.... oops...I can hear the slamming of the laptops at that! lol

woodsmoke