Linux creates a unique community.
What are the special values, traditions, and beliefs of people who use Linux?
What binds us together
I am sure there are other factors.
I know I like being here… can you tell me why?
When I got started, I was using Windows at home and installing it at work. I thought it was fun to play with Linux at home.
Fun is a significant part of it… something other than work.
At work we are regimented, at home we are free.
So Linux culture at work might differ from home user culture.
I has BSD at work, and at home. That made Linux easy to adapt to.
Some 40 years ago I saw my first apple and thought that is my way forward so convinced the college I was teaching at to go down that route replacing its office teaching computers. Leading edge technology (mac se).
Some 20 years back and now running my own business, i saw linux for the first time and saw it as a commercial venture that made me different from the rest, offering unique solutions.
Today I still feel unique in being able to use linux and offer that service.
I will never be rich in monétaire terms but different from others around me. Guess I like that unique idea in a world where most just follow the normal.
Yes, that is an important component of our Linux culture
You manage to do it in the business world too.
When I “discovered” Linux in late 1995 - I was already a tad familiar with UNIX (mostly SunOS and DG-UX)… I was doing “jack of all trades” IT support at a large “teaching hospital”… i.e. Windows 3.11 (we didn’t start deploying Win95 till 1996 - and even by 1997 - the main SOE was still Win 3.11), Novell Netware (mostly 3.x, but some 4.x with NDS), some Microsoft Mail (pre-exchange), some VMS, some SunOS (BSD based 4.x) and some DG-UX, and a whole bunch of mainframe terminals, controllers, and 3270 terminal emulators (hardware and software), plus a bit of SQL Server and Sybase SQL server around the shop…
So - I was perusing a Byte Magazine at work - and came across “Linux” - and hunted around for it and found a Slackware mirror hosted at AARNET (Academic site - run by Melbourne Uni and CSIRO - where @nevj worked?)…
Printed the whole installation guide by Patrick Volkerding and started trying to get it to run at home, from floppy disk images - on a spare 386-DX I had just “lying around”…
By late 1996 - I was deploying Linux as a server O/S (mostly a SMTP / POP) mail server mainly to replace the Mainframe mail system “netmail”… Lucky I got to do that on a Pentium system - because it still involved compiling a new kernel for ethernet support - and compiling on a Pentium was an order magnitude faster than on a 386-DX 33!!! This was Kernel 1.2.x - “modules” didn’t come till Kernel 2.x (and the beta code-base for Kernel 2 was still called kernel 1.3.x) - so eveything was completely monolithic…
What grabbed me first off - was the power of the shell - it was VASTLY superior to MS-DOS!
By 2001 - I was a UNIX specialist - instead of a jack of all trades… Even so - I didn’t really do a huge amount of Linux support until around 2012? Before then it was nearly 100% Solaris (and SunOS BSD was mostly dead, everywhere).
So - I got into it for a bit of “fun” and wanting to learn - and not having “sandpit” access to UNIX systems as they were production machines (even so - we still telnet’d to them as root 
). That was 30 years ago - what was fun then, aint necessarily so, today - I really can’t be arsed with all that heavy-lifting, so I use Ubuntu based Linux, and/or, MacOS (which is still UNIX!).
The fun comes from being able to do your own thing. The F in FOSS is important to all of us.
That was my first impression in BSD. I came from mainframe systems where the interactive system was a sort of addon completely unrelated to the main batch OS. Having the interactive shell with all the same commands as the OS was a revolution for me.
In the beginning there was Wintendo. It was buggy. Xahodo saw that and thought “this piece of shit has got to go!” And so it happened; Linux got installed.
I switched to Linux to avoid Windows’ endless mysterious bugs. These days I don’t want to be forced to be a QA tester for an operating system, so I use Linux.
Early on I thought myself a tweaker/programmer (while, in reality, I was a gamer). I used Linux for its openness and friendliness towards those who wish to look under the hood.
These days I don’t care anymore, I’m just a simple end-user who happens to know a thing or two about the system. As time progresses my knowledge gets more and more irrelevant (I don’t know anything about systemd (well, except from what I’ve read about the criticism) or wayland, f.e.), but that’s Okay.
Windows simply doesn’t cut it anymore. I’ve become used to actual quality.
My first IT job was mainframe stuff - my boss explained to me that neither JES2 or JCL had logic - i.e. you couldn’t even do an “if then else” or “while true do” loop… I guess it’s hard to do that kinda logic with punch cards…
Sheeze - we didn’t even have proper logic in MS-DOS - you could really only do stuff on “%errorlevel%” in MS-DOS… and you still have to do that even in PowerShell - i.e. escape shell characters and enclose variables in “%” signs… how primitive - it’s like the 1970’s called and asked “can we have our variables back please?”… FFS!
– edit –
It wouldn’t even be that hard - there was a VMS programmer doing most of Windows NT - and - NT 3.1 was POSIX compliant - why not move everyone over to a decent shell? But not - Microsoft had to move everyone over to the shambles that is PowerShell… Lack of vision…
I really think it’s all of that. And more.
You already mentioned the philosophical part.
Maybe I’m a little bit too much influenced by rms, but the “Free as in Freedom” part goes deeper than “no cost” or free beer.
As a community we can build a (technical) world without restrictions, where we learn from each other and are helping others to do their computing as they want.
We oppose all the greed and restrictions of the corporate world by standing for the four freedoms and not being impressed or bought out with shiny hardware or the promises of “work smarter with (fill in any proprietary crap)”.
I sure run into quirks with free software every now and then, but accept it as it beats the alternative of being hijacked by world dominating software companies…
Forgive me, if I sound like the old man in the rocking chair on the veranda, but I’m a hippie (with no hair anymore and a little technical expertise) and an idealist of sorts…
That’s why you can meet me at “Herzberg Festival” in July…
Have a nice rest of the week…
I like that. New users tend to react to minor quirks, and we need to counsel them because they can abandon FOSS because of a small annoyance and lose a huge benefit.
For me the essence of Linux is “The DIY Computer”. I get a lot of enjoyment out of saving money by creating my own computer (the software defines it) and using it every day. I also get some pleasure out of NOT using some huge company’s software, and not having to have an account with them, always doing things “their way”. It is a world of freedom, independence, creativity, and customization.
I like that phrase. It sums up what Linux is to the home user. Some scientific users look at it that way too, sometimes out of budgetary necessity, and sometimes out of pure interest.
There was a similar topic to this some years ago
One quote from it
" In Windows paying customers are treated like children who can’t be trusted. In Linux, users who pay nothing, are treated like paying customers."
Dont agree. I think Linux users are treated more like shareholders than customers.
From my rocker on the veranda, this looks like the mindset of most of the participants in this discussion. Being a shareholder beats being enslaved to the proprietary world of Apple and Microsoft.
Nice way to describe it, but forums like this one allows us to contribute to help others if not with development of linux itself.
Share in french is an action so fitting for us
Saw a photo that tickled my funnybone. Some kind of picnic or celebration in a park. Several ‘mature’ folks in rocking chairs. Sign said ‘Advice from your elders. Most is useful, but it’s ALL FREE.’ Reminded me of this group, with the exceptions of Rosika and Sheila, who are perpetually young.
In this context I always think about: “If you want an OS that doesn’t chauffeur you around, but hands you the keys, puts you in the driver’s seat, and expects you to know what to do: Get GNU/Linux. You’ll have to devote some time to learning how to use it, but once you’ve done so, you’ll have an OS that you can make sit up and dance.”
I like this! I have DIY audio system also (only commercial product at the moment is the CD-player). Tubes only, I even built my own tonearm+turntable. Maybe we are more DIY than Win/Apple folks?
Can I add my own name to that list ?
Just checked my age and it says 39 / 40 on my shoes, but as I am english I am officially 7 and a 1/2 .
I was going to grew up to be peter pan especially when I saw tinkerbell !
After all you are only as old as the girl you feel …
My beloved spouse says I have a wide streak of 12yo in my character, so maybe I should add myself.
