I work by trade as a web administrator for a local university. For those who know a little about system administration, I'm basically a Unix/Linux sysadmin but the focus of my current job is on administering the servers of a J2EE web environment that runs on Solaris/Sparc and which utilizes various open source (and a few closed source) web/app server technologies. I've also been transitioned into the role of a portal administrator administering SungardHE's Luminis product, which is pretty cool.
In the past I've been a BEA (now Oracle) Weblogic administrator, a network administrator, a network consultant, a lead PC tech, and a help desk analyst. I started in the field supporting Windows PCs and servers. I quickly got my MCSE and rose to greater responsibility. I eventually settled into system administration because that is where the most interesting and gratifying work is (for me). And once I started getting into Unix administration and seeing the power it gave me as the sysop to automate and monitor my system, I was hooked!
I guess the reason I got into IT/Computer/System Administration is because tinkering with computers, software, operating systems and networks is what I would do "for fun and for free" if I wasn't getting paid for it. I like this stuff! It interests me no end to learn new things, to try to gain greater efficiency/organization, better performance with computers.
I use Linux (and OpenBSD when/where I can) for a number of reasons. The primary reason I use them is that I prefer to use the money I would pay for the Windows operating system, the antivirus software license, the license for a nice burning utility like Nero, a nice text editor like UltraEdit, WinRar, Microsoft Office, Adobe CS3, Microsoft Visual Studio, etc. etc. to pay for better hardware, or a nicer monitor, or more RAM, or more hard drives, or to take my wife out to dinner, what have you. I'm not a poor person, but spending thousands every year in a software treadmill is not my idea of spending my own money wisely -- at least not when there are seriously viable alternatives. Although I'm happy to support closed source software for my employer, it's not something I would choose to use for my own needs where I can avoid it.
The version of Linux I use switches between Ubuntu and Fedora pretty regularly (depending on my mood). Why I choose Ubuntu is its ease of use. It's easy to install, easy to upgrade/update, it's easy to configure, it's got a nice look and feel, it detects and uses all my hardware with very little (if any) manual intervention on my behalf. I like Fedora for all these reasons too, but it carries the additional advantage of showing me the things I can expect to see in Red Hat Enterprise Linux in the next releases, which is important to me because Red Hat seems to be one of the most widely used versions of Linux in business here in the states, at least according to my experience. The cool thing about Linux is that once you learn what's going on under the hood, you can use any distribution of Linux and make it work for you, you are not limited in your ability to customize and tailor it to meet your needs.
I've been using Linux for well over 11 years now. I started with an old, outdated version of Red Hat back in around 1998 (I don't recall which release it was, actually). At the same time I was experimenting with FreeBSD, which I'd heard great things about and a guy in my neighborhood urged me to check out. In those days the challenge (for me) was to get a successful install and to get the desktop and the modem working. Eventually I started getting interested in setting up my own services, like http/web, DNS, mail, etc. I learned a great deal by setting up my own BIND servers and my own web server and running them out of a closet in my apartment. (This was after I had upgraded my US Robotics 56k modem to a nice Speakeasy DSL line that allowed me to host these services). I also learned a ton about Linux by using a more hands-on distro like Gentoo for a number of years. I can't tell you how much I learned by having to set up my own grub bootloader, my own fstab, my own kernels, etc. etc.
Speaking of Gentoo, here are the slides I created to use for a "lightening round" speech I gave at PLUG, the Philadelphia Linux Users' Group in February 2005 on the Gentoo Operating System.
My current rigs:Main workstation:
* Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz
* Abit IP35 Pro Motherboard
* G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
* 1 x 300GB Western Digital Raptor 10,000RPM SATA HDD (Ubuntu 9.04 RC))
* 3 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives
* Thermaltake W0116RU 750W Power Supply
* EVGA 256-P2-N751-TR GeForce 8600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Video Card
* ASUS 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model DRW-2014L1T
* Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower
Servers, secondary workstations...
AMD64 3400+ with 1024k L2 cache
MSI K8N Neo Platinum
nVidia GT 6800
Creative Audigy2 ZS Platinum Pro
2 x 512MB Crucial Ballistix DDR400 PC3200 RAM
Thermaltake XASER III V2000A
Thermaltake woo11 480W PSU
AMD64 3200+
MSI K8T Neo FIS2R
2 x 512MB Mushkin Special Black DDR400 PC3200 RAM
1 x 80GB HDD FreeBSD
1 x 160GB HDD Storage
Lian-li pc-75 sky scraper
Antec True Blue 480W PSU
SPARC Dev box:
Sun Ultra60 2x360 Mhz.
512MB RAM
2 x 18GB SCSI HDD