I cant say it helped me grow in terms of conceptual reasoning skills but it definitely breathed brand new life into my computing knowledge.

I am late to the party myself, I first ran into Linux about 2001 at the University of Florida in the astrophysics lab I worked at. The lab was making parts for the LIGO project which I was really happy to be a part of. They were using a version of SuSe (german lab manager :/) at the command line to calculate prorogation of laser modes through different lenses, etc.

I wasn't that into it.

About a year later a roommate of mine installed Mandrake on our hub computer to route the home network and since I was in-between computers at the time I used that terminal as my main computer. Thats when I started really getting into Linux.

About two years after that (after finishing school and having the time I wanted to commit to learning it) I tried my first install and as a glutton for punishment but thinking that Gentoo was the most suited distro for my liking (which it is) I picked up Gentoo 2004.0. I couldnt figure out that install for about four months. When I finally learned gentoo which really taught me a lot about computing and Linux in general I was hooked and I have been an avid Gentoo user since. This is really how Linux expanded my understanding of computing to the next level.

And no I am not Asian. And yes, I think Gentoo is the most underrated and underappreciated distro out there.

Since then I have tried about every distro but I also come home to Gentoo (altho my netbook these days has ubuntu on it for simplicity sake).

VIVA LINUX!

Kings edict things; Obama is setting policy for a free and open democratic society. Bush edicted things.

you have a very rigid way of thinking? Why do you think the problems that repeat have the same solution every century? We are in different times and so different solutions are needed. You could have said the same thing about Clinton coming into office actually, and he turned around an economy and provided needed services to our country. Obama could easily repeat that success; the question is can he come up with positive solutions, or use the same tired thinking that got us into the mess of the last eight years? My money is on he can do it.