Linux

I can't remember if it was 99 or 2000, I got a copy of Red Hat 6.0 (Hedwig) on the cover of a magazine and installed it. I remember the Lilo boot manager giving me trouble and then it was multiple days of dialing up the internet on my dad's PC to find info on getting X11 to run correctly on my graphics hardware. Once I got that going it was my win modem that defeated me in the end, couldn't get any internet. So was back to Windows for another couple of years.

In 2003 my university course had a Linux Administration subject and the lecturer had built a live cd of Fedora Core 2 (this was in the days before live cds were a regular thing) it was a revelation and it worked with much less setup. We had a Linux lab, but the livecd allowed us to work on Linux on our personal machines. I'd dabble with Linux and explore distros for a few years, depending on hard ware compatibility, I'd always have at least one Linux box. I remember attempting to get HalfLife 2 running in Cedega (a commercial fork of wine), even played the original left4dead with friends, this was in 2008. I was there when pulse audio launched before it was ready and when KDE moved to version 4 and was an absolute resource hog. I bought the unreal and tournament games on disc to play on Linux. Was Disappointed when the UT3 release got delayed and then eventually canceled. I remember going to the id software ftps to get the Linux binaries for all the quakes. There were a few other Linux adventures in there, like a misguided attempt at compiling Gentoo in 2007 and working out mythtv server as a media pc and pvr.

Was excited when I got beta access to steam in 2012, and I haven't had Windows on my personal computers since then.