Sorry if my English isn't spot-on here-and-there, I'm not a native speaker.
Programming
I was like 13 or 14 at the time, interested in computers and already more invested in them than most of my peers. Of course I was a Windows user, as far as my knowledge went at the time the only two desktop operating systems that existed were Windows and MacOS, tough I didn't have the money for either of them, so I just pirated downloaded Windows instead.
I was doing things like learning basic web development in HTML and CSS, writing l337 h4x0r, 'malicious' powershell scripts (infinite reboot loop, etc.), and that's about it. I didn't really understand how they worked though, I mostly just copied some base script and slightly modified it to my liking.
Later, in high school, we were introduced to our new IT teacher. Keep in mind my school has absolutely nothing to do with IT, in fact, I was in a language-focused class, not sure why to be honest. This teacher basically just taught every boring basic stuff most IT teachers do, which is the MS Office Suite. Until one day, we went into class and he said "Ok kids, let's do something new today". He told us to open up the very first IDE I've ever used, which is Visual Studio.
He taught us (or at least, made an attempt to teach us) C# basics. Like very basics, I mean declaring variables and basic mathematical operations, stuff like that. Nobody in my class was interested at all and most of them had troubles and just gave up and asked me for help. I, on the other hand, was absolutely hooked.
Later that day, at home, I immediately downloaded Visual Studio and started experimenting with C#. It wasn't until the next morning, when I had opened up Visual Studio for the second time, that I was warned that my license was invalid. "No way, I have to pay for this stuff?". Turns out no, only for the non-community editions. Still, I felt restricted already even though I wouldn't have even been able to use the features offered by the paid versions yet. I was, after all, just writing some console applications.
Linux
I was, more often than not, really annoyed by the sluggish nature of my PC. I didn't really complain, as I thought it's because my computer is a bit old (about 7 years old at the time of writing, this is still the same PC). It was an inconvenience, nothing more, it was still usable.
This went on for a few months, until the PC had become unusably slow. Since I spent lots of time on Discord servers, subreddits and forums relevant to programming in general, I've seen 'Linux' pop up a lot. All I've heard about it before was exactly once, when I was like 11 is that it's this thing on your PC where you can reprogram everything you want, however you want. That's it, I didn't even know it was an operating system, only that is was this thing. I've also heard that it can be ran from a USB without installing. Out of curiosity, I've tried it. It was, different, to say the least. That's what my thoughts were. Sure it was a little faster, but nothing spectacular. That was until I live booted this cool hacker OS, Kali.
I was blown away by what the system was capable of doing. Suddenly, all those restrictions posed by Windows and just generally Microsoft DRM were gone. I could do anything I wanted to.
After looking at many tutorials online, I managed to hack my own WAP at home. I brute forced it using a WPA handshake. I felt so cool, even though I didn't really understood how or why it worked, all I basically did is I copied a bunch of commands, pasted the into the terminal and hit Enter.
I also hacked the school's WiFi, which was reserved for school staff only, then entered the school sysadmin's office and silently slid the password on his desk which was fun I guess, and since he just laughed at the whole situation instead of being mad, we became pretty good friends and still sometimes talk to this day.
Switching
I heard about dual booting from the previously mentioned communities before. I was so blown away by Kali that I wanted to install it. So I did. And so my first dual-booted Linux install was born, Kali. Some time after I obviously discovered the drawbacks of Kali compared to other OSs, and I switched to, at first Ubuntu, then Manjaro, and now I'm on Arch.
My curiosity and hunger for learning made me a decent hacker. I learned about new tools to use, I learned about Docker and Metasploitable, combined the two to create magic (I still use that same container to this day), and just experimented a lot in my free time. I also bought some books about hacking, which were really disappointing to be honest. Despite the title (translated to English, not the original title), Advanced Hacking Techniques, all it really did, mostly, was show me how to secure a Windows system.
I still do a lot of coding, though not just C# anymore. I also know some Java, Python, PHP, as well as MySQL and bash (if you count those). Hacking is something that I always enjoyed, however, from time to time I would take a break for a month or to and focus on coding instead, but it always popped back into my mind and I was back in action again.
Conclusion
Linux gave me the power and the tools to discover my passion, out of which I have solid plans to make a career. I probably never would have been able to achieve this without Open Source Software. It also technically allowed me to use the same PC to this day without having to buy a new one, so that's cool.
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