Hey! 🙋 I'm an autistic person (diagnosed at age 3). I grew up using Mac computers mostly, because my father preferred them for his work. Although I would encounter Windows a lot when I was at school as well. However, I didn't really know how to use Windows until I started seeing videos on YouTube about it (such as this one). This was when I was around 10. So I started experimenting with different editions of it (Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows XP, etc.) via a pirated copy of Parallels Desktop. I also found out about Linux, and toyed with Ubuntu with a bit via Parallels. I found it fun, and thus considered the idea of installing Linux properly onto my Macbook. Unfortunately, the trackpad support wasn't there. So for my 11th birthday, I asked for a "Windows laptop", and immediately after getting it, I set up some dual-boot with Windows 10 and some fork of Ubuntu called "Pinguy OS". (I spent way too much time looking at DistroWatch.) Then, I distro-hopped for a bit until I finally settled on Void Linux when I was 13. I'm now 18 and am running Void full-time on my current laptop, it doesn't even have a Windows partition. :)

[–] WordBox@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Awesome! What made you pick void?

[–] mayhair@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Apologies for the late reply, my internet went down for a day. Anyway, before I was using a distro called Antergos (basically Arch with an easy installer and a few custom packages). When it was discontinued, some people waited for what is basically its spiritual successor, EndeavourOS. Others switched to using vanilla Arch. But I decided to use Void after some research, as to me it was Arch but with a few advantages to my favour:

At the time, Void had an installation wizard while Arch didn't (you manually installed it by following the wiki, basically). Now, archinstall exists, I guess.
It's still rolling-release, so you can update whenever you want easily, but at the same time not bleeding-edge, so packages don't break as easily.
Unlike most Linux distros, it uses runit as the init system instead of systemd. I'm no rabid systemd hater, but you gotta admit that runit is just easier to learn how to use.
And finally, by adopting a non-major distro, I just wanted to promote Linux apps being compatible with as many distros as possible, and not just either Debian, Fedora, or Arch (or whatever derivatives exist thereof).

(Also, happy cake day! I didn't know Lemmy had cake days until now hehe :)

[–] RVGamer06@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Yooo, another autistic geek 2006er!

I was diagnosed at age 4 and i started with Flash games on a Windows 7 family desktop. The first PC i could keep in my bedroom was an old netbook with XP and Lubuntu gifted to me by my mom(i only used the linux part tho). Then, later, another XP-era laptop with Linux Mint, before the current win10 laptop i have today(used it with Windows so far cuz i'm lazy and i used to need windows software but i plan to Linuxize this as soon as win10 is discontinued)

When i take the jump i'm prolly gonna settle for KDE Neon or any other Debian-based that can run KDE and then try to theme it to get something as close to Frutiger Aero as possible.

[–] mayhair@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Ayy! 🤝

I'm also thinking of trying KDE the next time I install Linux. I've been using GNOME for the vast majority of my time on Linux, though I've also dabbled with Xfce and Antergos' built-in OpenBox configuration for a short while.