It's coming up on five years that I've used Linux. I thought I'd share a few backward glances in case any of you would be interested in my perspective.
During this time, I've used Linux as my primary platform of choice for nearly everything I do with a computer. Obviously, I do a fair amount of writing along with the usual chores, such as running my personal finances and doing research for articles. I also use Linux for my personal entertainment, so I have been listening to quite a bit of music (blues, especially!) and playing some games. I also depend on Linux to protect my home network and provide dialup service to my household.
Occasionally I do some programming, and Linux seems great for that, of course. I enjoy shell and Perl programming, with occasional forrays into C and Pascal. I've relished my small programming experience with Linux because you can open up the entire system and see how it works. All source code is available, so you don't have to stew and fluster about how a system program does what it does. Just look at the source and see how professionals do it.
Perhaps the most profound change has been that I've grown intollerant of systems that don't stay up and running like Linux does. I just expect all computers to run and run, because that is what I get at home. If I have to use a Windows computer, it quickly becomes apparent that I'm spoiled. It also reminds me how enslaved to Microsoft most of the world is. How sad. But, I guess that's why Linux and other free OS software is attracting so much attention.
Another profound change has been my lack of need to upgrade my hardware as frequently as some of my friends. I hear them complaining about their systems being terribly slow with their new office software. I also hear them complain about incompatable file formats. Strangely, I don't seem to suffer those maladies. At this moment, I'm typing this article on an old P133 with 32MB RAM. I'm using the LATEX mode in Emacs to create the source file, and I can output the file to HTML, RTF, plain text, or to any one of the standard Unix formats, such as troff, SGML Document types, or PostScript. Most of my acquaintenaces, however, wouldn't know what to do with anything but a native Word Office file, unfortunately. And when I try to share files with other well meaning people, I largely run into this brick wall where I had hoped there would be a clue about document transformation. That's been a disappointment, I must confess.
But, happily, if I keep the latest and greatest copy of the Applix Office Suite around, I can seem to overcome those obstacles too. Applix has been my salvation for handling mangled office documents and saving them into some kind of half-way intelligent format that I can deal with. Of course, I regret that I have to spend all of about $80 to actually buy software anymore.
That's another feature I had forgotten all about: I get almost all my software for free. Oh, well, sometimes I still buy a Linux CD instead of download it or upgrade it online, but that's usually for some kind of new fandangled distribution or perhaps a BSD implementation. Even now, I can't fathom paying $80 for Red Hat Linux. That's unthinkable. Hey, I'm happy that those folks are making some money. (And they've made quite a bit if you figure in how much their stock is worth!) But I'd rather order the same stuff from Cheapbytes (www.cheapbytes.com) and pay a fraction of their price.
Lately, when it comes to Linux, I just let Debian do it all for me. It's the most intelligent Linux distribution I've seen to date. It's more concerned with not doing something dumb than it is about appearing flashy and cutting edge. (Although, it is pretty cutting edge, actually.) For example, most of the more commercial Linux distributions I've seen go ahead and set up your web server, mail server, dns server, and so forth by default. They may ask you one or two questions during installation which you may or may not know the answer to. Then they launch those servers from inet.d or wherever in what sometimes is a less than fully-configured state. Although this is convenient for new users, it is also a security risk. Debian turns on only the basic services by default, and you can turn others on after you get them configured. This saves you lots of grief that you might run into if your system ``gets rooted'' before you have a clue to what you're doing.
Now, one thing I haven't mentioned is that I still use Windows for some things. Sometimes I still get questions from friends and neighbors who need Windows help, and I have a box nearby that I can use. It's networked into a samba server, and I can share files easily with all my Linux/Unix boxes. Further, there are still more abundant and better games for Windows than Linux. Although it gets better for Linux/Unix all the time. This is still one area that Linux trails behind Windows in for marketing reasons more than anything else.
Windows still handles my Internet Phone chats with my brother, a diehard Windows user. But hey, at least he installed Linux, and I think he actually might even look at X from time to time. The Internet Phone works great with my firewalling software, too.
In conclusion, Linux has only made life easier and more convenient by using Linux and BSD Unix. While I'm still a newbie with BSD (I use OpenBSD and FreeBSD), I'm much more comfortable with Linux. It's taken some years to get to this point. There've been frustrating times when something broke and I had to figure out how to fix it, but I always was able to fix it because it's a completely open system. Someone always seemed to be around, either online or in person, to help me through the problem. In retrospect, it's been a satisfying experience.