(Linux users !) What was the first Linux distro that you used ?

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Mandrake. Emailed to me on a CD. I feel old.

Mandrake in 2003, I was young and didn't know what I was doing...

Red Hat Linux back in 1999.

It was no distro, it was kernel 0.99 and bunch of gnu utils on like 8 floppy disks, and 10 more floppies or so for X11. I was running it on a 486DX50 iirc.

Linux 0.2, not.joking. a friend came with it to me, just downloaded from a newsgroup (I think) around 1992, on a floppy! We tested it on my PC, didn't know what to do with it, and promptly removed it. A few years later we gave it another try, and the rest is history

Slackware, installed from a big stack of 3.5" disks

Ubuntu... before Canonical nuked it.

Slackware, dont remember the version but it was 1996.

Mandrake 9.1.

Mandrake 7 was the first one I installed on my pc. In those days you could buy a boxed version with about 10 cds to install from.

A friend of mine gave me an official Ubuntu 4.10 CD and that was my first Linux distro that I have tried.

I still have that CD.

Knoppix Live CD back in 2004!

Slackware, and it took years before I tried again.

Ubuntu. I couldn't afford a new laptop for college so I desperately googled for some way to make my old machine last.

Ubuntu (can't remember if it was 6 or 8) was the first distro that I used, my cousin and another family friend used it and I got interested and asked to have it installed on my home desktop.

For years, every LTS release of Ubuntu I installed as dual boot to try and experiment for a few weeks and then uninstalled it, using Windows for everything.

2 years ago, I decided that I wanted to try other distributions and to switch and use Linux as my daily driver, so I installed Manjaro on my laptop and I have been using it daily since.

Linux Mint. It's been a while since I used Mint now, but I do missTimeshift

Slackware. Version 3.1 if I remember rightly, with Linux kernel 2.19.x.

It was installed from floppy disks, you needed about 10 of them to do a full install including X Windows.

At the time (1997 or 1998) I only had dial up internet at home, so over the period of several days I brought blank floppies in to work, downloaded the relevant images and copied them on to the disks.

I then spent most of a weekend trying to persuade an (even then elderly) PS/2 with 4 MB of RAM to become a Linux box. Got there in the end, though!

Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn

Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake :)

Slackware. Fall of '93. Well over 20, 3.5" diskettes. Sacrificed my OS/2 machine to do this.

Red hat linux

Gentoo.

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Knoppix in 2006, arch today.

Mandrake ! Autumn 1999 if I remember well...

Debian Woody PPC. I also downloaded Yellow Dog but don't remember ever installing or using it.

@deepinder_brar Ubuntu 8.10

Mint, because it's what my dad put on my first laptop when I was like 10 or something. I remember playing minetest and FTL on it.

Started with Red Had 6 and then moved to Fedora Core 1. Have been on Fedora releases since.

Backtrack then crunchbang. Eventually I moved to arch. I've been using debian and mint lately though.

It's all a blur because I was maybe like 6 or 7 at the time, but I'm fairly certain it was Red Hat. The original, not RHEL.

I have vivid memories of playing a game that involved collecting gems and avoiding falling rocks in a maze, similar to Boulder Dash or Emerald Mine. I have no idea what it was, but I know it wasn't Rocks'n'Diamonds because I played that a lot and the graphics were different.

Lindows lmao

Slackware 0.97 (if I recall correctly) it must’ve been in 1993 I think

This is the weirdest attempt to get my website security question answers... But... Slackware on floppies.

I daily drove Puppy Linux live booted off a USB for a few months probably 15 years a go when my hard drive died and I couldn't afford a new one.

I think it was probably Ubuntu 6.10. a friend from high school have me a CD to install it.

Hard to remember because it was in 2000 on my gateway PC, but I remember trying to setup Gentoo and redhat and knoppix and failing miserably.

Redhat 4.? I'm not really sure of the precise version but it was sometime in the late 99 or early 2000.

Slackware, floppies, my 486.

10 years ago Arch and it was a bloodbath. No background and both IT bros said I should not do it. Took about 4 days and countless rescues, so much manual fstab editing, looking up what the thing I destroyed even is. Glorious times. Dual boot because I thought I might need windows, not anymore.

Redhat. When it came time to upgrade i dug myself into rpm hell so many times. I struggled, had to reinstall. Next redhat upgrade, same experience.
I tried debian potato, and dist-upgraded to next stable with no issues. I was floored. Have been dist-upgrading ever since. And run a few hundreds of debian servers.

Oh god it's been so long (20+ years). I only remember that whatever distro I installed had that great game preinstalled in which Tux slides down a mountain. Ah... Nice memories of easier times.

DSL (Damn Small Linux) was what I started plying with, but my first daily driver was PCLOS.

Knoppix. Was recommended it by someone I chatted with at the time and that did not go well. This was not Knoppix's fault though, but rather me not knowing what I got into. Things worked as one would expect, the applications that were included ran without issues, but the issue came when wanted to install software. At the time didn't know anything about linux, so didn't know how to use the terminal to install software, and when trying to install new ones using exe files that didn't work for now obvious reasons. So threw that stuff out and went back to windows, and didn't touch Linux again until Ubuntu Hardy Heron which went a lot better.

VoyagerOS - no idea about anything other than Windows being a thing, less of a clue about what I was doing, think I read something about it being lightweight and guessed it fit my needs.

Ubuntu 16.04

I did some research on what would be a good OS for someone coming from Windows and at the time Linux Mint was recommended a lot so that's what I chose.

I learned on Red Hat back in the 90s

I had got a copy for free some place, so I taught myself how to install and use it

Arch. Went in at the deep end.

Suffice to say that I no longer use Linux. Got it built with relative ease though inevitably hit issues along the way, but got tired of having to use terminal for everything. Would not recommend Arch as your first distro unless you already love existing in a terminal.

Knoppix, on a live CD. Then shorty after, Aurox Linux, distributed as a number of CD with a magazine. Around 2004-2005. Then Mandriva.

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Immediately liked the interface, but was bummed by lack of software and (expected) subpar performance on my shitty hardware. Went back to Windows 7 after a month or so. It took me quite a lot of hopping between many Linux distros and Windows to finally settle on Manjaro as my desktop OS of choice

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Some version of Ubuntu. I forgot which version number.

Attempted to use Red Hat 4 (pre-RHEL), but couldn't work out the partitioning. However, I tried SuSE Linux Personal 7.0 soon afterwards and YaST gave me a much smoother time when installing everything; I've been using SUSE/openSUSE ever since as my primary Linux distro.

The very first Linux? That would be DSL (Damn Small Linux).

I don't know whether it still exists but in 2003-ish, I was looking for something on-the-go and came across DSL.

I recently (2 years now) started using Linux as a daily driver again. Had to learn a lot of new things. This time someone on GamingOnLinux adviced me to start with Mint. But it wasn't for me. So it's been a great journey.

Debian 2.2 on a consulting job in 2001. I'd used Unix mainframes in college, but other than that had only ever done work on DOS and Windows before then. Didn't think much of it at the time, though it was familiar and easy to work with. Certainly a far cry from the experience we all have with Linux today.

for me it was: Puppy Linux for a desktop machine with 254MB of RAM when I was on 1-2nd semester in Preparatory School

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Ubuntu 8.04, and I got it on one of those free discs they used to send out.

Slackware 7, year 2000. Never seen linux before. Thanks to help from IT geek next door managed to boot net-installer it from single 3.5". After many hours managed do finally get xfree86 working. As far as I remember it was running with KDE.

Ubuntu, either version 12.04 or 12.10 when I got my first computer, a Chromebook, in Christmas 2013 when I was 10. I hated how Chrome OS didn't support anything so I found a way to put Ubuntu on it and messed around with Blender and Minecraft. Despite this early start, I proceeded to do nothing productive with it, broke it out of frustration, and now I'm 20 and struggling with Arch lmao

I installed linux mint on some really old laptop when i was a little kid but i wouldnt really consider that my first distro that i actually used on a dailybasis, that would be SteamOS on a Steam deck, it showed me how great linux could be and got me hooked on it.

Ubuntu with Gnome Classic.

Gentoo circa 2002. Soooooo over my capabilities at the time

Started using Linux a year ago. My friend recommended Manjaro (not a good distro) because he himself used Arch. I was a little to stupid to use Manjaro at the time so I moved to Ubuntu, then Kali and finally Arch which is what I use now. I have practiced some distrohopping with Arco, Vanilla, Archcraft and my favourite Gentoo.In the future I want to dabble with LFS and Gentoo but I do see myself using Arch from this point forward. Linux is such an amazing operating system and it has taught me very much. Also use Neovim.

RHEL 2.3, still have the cd somewhere

Not sure but it was slackware or red hat in 1997

I don't actively use Linux anymore but I think I first used puppy Linux in middle school. I was a strange kid and got a kick out of anything that could run off a flash drive.

Then I'd use like Ubuntu, lubuntu, and mint typically. I'm back to using windows because I only really use my computer for gaming and I honestly had a rare gift for bricking distros by installing something wrong.

I spent weeks installing Linux in 2002, finally got it up and running and was like wow this is barely usable.

Turns out I had a fundamental misunderstanding, and there were pre-made distributions of it for you to use! Took me two years to realize that. Picked up Ubuntu and it just worked (other than wifi)

I'm pretty sure it was Ubuntu 5.10 or 6.06. I remember playing around with Compiz/Beryl on it and thinking it was so cool.

i think the first one i tried was Ubuntu 7.04 when i was just messing around with linux on an old Windows XP Machine. A few years later I ran Mint on my laptop and now I'm kind of getting back into it with Manjaro on my current old laptop lol.

No better way to learn about linux than to just try it out

Deepin

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My first distro was SlackWare 7.

I'm not anywhere near my desktop(s) but it has largely been an Ubuntu box of differing flavors.

Though I experimented with Yoper, Knollix, SuSe, Mint, and a few other distros.

RedHat 5.2, purchased in a plastic-wrapped cardboard box from Best Buy. God I'm old 😭

I started back on Ubuntu Hardy Heron. It was so much prettier than Windows, it got 11 yr. old me into hosting web servers

I think it was Debian! My dad had an old cd of it and we live booted into it for fun like almost 20 years ago.

Mandrake like in 2003.

Some version of Ubuntu. I got a free laptop that didn't have an operating system so I just put linux on it because I didn't want to buy windows.

I forget whether I did Mandrake or Redhat first. This was on a 3.5" floppy, heh.

Old GenToo, when I finally got off of dial-up, was an interesting experience. Building everything from the ground up definitely taught me a lot.

These days, I mostly use Ubuntu at home (and various at work). I may give mint a shot, however.

Redhat lol back in the 90’s

I probably played with some Ubuntu live CDs beforehand, since you could order them for free, but the first time actually using it was back in 2004-2005. I had gotten one of the first AMD 64 bit laptops, with 32 bit Windows and I wanted to see what 65 bit “could do”. So I installed Ubuntu as a dual boot setup. Worked quite well! I played around a lot with customising the experience, making my desktop 3D with Compiz. Great times! I also remember the lack of game support it had, I could only play OpenTTD on it. How times have changed! I’m now running Linux full time on my game machine (EndeavourOS) and haven’t touched Windows in a long time.

I am not really sure but I think it was yggdrasil. I remember loading a ton of floppies one after the other. 5 1/4 inch ones too!

Linux Mint

Kubuntu 6.06. Got the CD with a computer magazine that had a good tutorial on how to install the thing next to a pre-existing Windows partition. To this day I miss the look of KDE 3!

Installed and tinkered with Mandrake 6.0 First full time: Ubuntu 04-10. Warty Warthog

I can't remember if it was Ubuntu or openSUSE, but I read about both in a PC magazine around 2005-2006 and had to try them out. I'm guessing it was probably openSUSE as it has a cooler logo.

SuSe Linux from an installation CD about twenty years ago. A right royal pain in the arse it was.

My first distro was OpenSUSE (or SuSE Linux back then) sometime around 2002. I picked it up out of curiosity in a book shop. They were selling the handbook, bundled with a DVD with the actual OS. It looked something like this. And thus started decades of distro hopping.

Ubuntu sometime in the late 2000's. I remember a friend showing me virtual desktops that rotated between each other.

I dual booted my machine and it was amazing... For 10 seconds until I realized thats all it did. When right back to windows.

God I am old, I remember before kali rebranded 😭.

Phlak and Knoppix were mine. Neither lasted long since I couldn't install it on my home computer. The first one I installed as a dual boot was Ubuntu. While I have strayed from them over the years they have been my daily driver for the better part of 15 years

Ubuntu back in 2005.

DLD 5 in 1998, a colleague at work handed me a CDR and said "i think this might be something for you", and he was right ;)

Mandrake ~7. Back them I had dial-up internet, but got the install CD from a magazine.

Fedora, then moved on Debian after I did break my install 😌 No windows since 2013 and snowden reveals.

Red Hat mid 90s and then Slackware, Red Hat was more polished but I learnt so much more from Slackware.

Slackware. Don't remember the version.

The first I had for work was Ubuntu.

Officially it was Raspberry Pi OS although I had messed around with Mint and Ubuntu a bit before that.

Zenwalk. Not sure why...

I think it was mint or elementry

I started on Arch and it's the only distro I've ever really loved.

Ubuntu as my shitty thinkpad with Windows XP lagged like hell. It was improvement, but geeks on the internet keep saying that Ubuntu is slow and bloated. This motivated me to distrohop and finally landed with Arch Linux. Prob 8+ years with this OS 😂

Lubuntu 12.04 IIRC

I played with SuSE 6.2 for a while in 1999 but only really turned to Linux in 2001 with Mandrake Linux 8.0.

Had to use red hat for a cyber security class in college, but I tinkered with Ubuntu back in highschool. I had no idea what I was doing lmao

My first contact with linux was with Ubuntu Server 14.04 when I started my first minecraft project with a friend. We decided to try setting up the server on a VPS instead of using a hosting provider that takes care of all the setup and stuff automatically. That was one heck of a journey, but gave me a good quickstart into linux. Nowadays I use linux as a daily driver at home and for the entirety of my server infrastructure.

Slackware. And it was a bitch to get everything working is all I remember.

attempted Debian and Suse, but first one I got installed and actually used for awhile was a Stage 1 Gentoo build

Slackware to start with, then redhat which seemed very slick and convenient in comparison. Had to drive all the way across the city to buy it on several CDs from some bloke cos my dial up internet was not up to the task. Then I found Debian and stuck with it for about 20yrs, but I think I had some kind of broadband by that point.

Fedora from a cd around 2006

Some version of Ubuntu around the time they were doing the Ubuntu phone

My mom brought me a disk of mandrake Linux. I tried it and I was pretty lost.

Ubuntu > OpenSuse > Mint

Tried some others along the way but didn't liked them.

I think mint, but after that Ubuntu and kubuntu since ~gutsy.

Ubuntu, which I pretty much only installed so I could also install compiz fusion because it looked badass. Nothing like a 3D cube for my multiple desktops, and windows that jiggle when I move them and burn up when I close them.

Corel Linux, I doubt anyone else here knows it especially used it. Very user friendly, got me into linux.

Caldera, followed by redhat followed by Slackware which I stayed on for quite a while.

Ubuntu -> Manjaro -> Pop! OS

Mandrake 7.1 - it was aweful.

I couldn't run Linux on my PC due too lack of hardware support at the time, but FreeBSD had support, so I ran that for a couple of years until Linux caught up.

At that time, there wasn't much choice when it came to distros. These days, it's a little bit of everything. Arch on my daily driver, RHEL on my ERP and DB servers, Ubuntu server on my Dev server, and I'm planning on deploying NixOS across the 700 PCs at our different locations.

I tried Caldera first, but could never get it to boot. The first one I managed to actually use was Ubuntu 5.10, and that's what got Linux to be my daily driver. Lots of distro-hopping later, I'm still daily driving Linux, Debian these days.

I distrohopped at the start, no idea what I started with but the first one I settled on was Solus. Still a big fan of Budgie, and the OS felt easy to use, yet had the possibility to download stuff like Spotify as well.

Debian... would recommend

Some really old ubuntu version running in a folder in my windows partition. It kept crashing and uninstall was just removing the folder. Another os was beos which ran from a folder too.

Manjaro for a while. It broke a few times and then I started using Nix os, until I started using Endeavour.

Ubuntu. If I remember correctly it was in 2016. I do remember that it was still using the Unity desktop environment, which was pretty good in my opinion. I didn't know anything about Linux back then, and I tried to run Minecraft on it through WINE. It didn't work lol.

Ubuntu 7.04

Ubuntu. But that was an office pc so pretty limited. Mint was the first ever I installed and stayed there for a few years.

Rhel 5? Maybe 6. It was regular gnome in the early 2000s, and we had Solaris too, but no app. My first distro on my own machine was Ubuntu

OpenSUSE 10.2 I think. Then Ubuntu 7.04. Stuck with it until they moved to the Unity DE.
Then Xubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Kubuntu...
Recently moved to Linux Mint Cinnamon as I got fed up of more of the base system being Snaps.
I did try Mint MATE but the need for more modern built in features won over the nostalgia 🤣

I got to use ubuntu in school, but never really got into it. When I started getting annoyed by windows I wanted to move to debian (which I bonked the install for and never got to work). After some shuffling around I settled with Mint (Cinnamon), which I've used since and like very much.

some 20 years back: Suse 7.0, my first PC, reinstalled it every week, cause me dumb dumb back then and it was not very easy to use as well.

Fedora 6. Had to use it to build a server for my A+ class. Good times.

Manjaro GMOME was my first distro on hardware (had Ubuntu in VMs before)

Ubuntu on 1st year of college

The first distro I used was Ubuntu as part of a computer class at school, but it was preinstalled on a school computer. The first distro I installed on a personal computer was Arch because le reddit said it was le epic hackerman's IMPOSSIBLE CHALLENGE TO INSTALL distro. It installed, and after that I didn't use it because my favorite Windows apps couldn't work.

Ubuntu 18.04

The first distro I used was Guadalinex, a distro developed by my Government (Andalusia, Spain) for education. I used it at school.

The first distro I installed was Ubuntu.

The first distro I daily drived was Fedora.

I first tried Ubuntu because it was the only one I knew of besides arch and I heard that arch was hard. I hated Ubuntu immediately and started distro hopping. I'm on Debian 12 now and it's the longest I've been on a single distro.

OpenSuse with KDE on a Netbook

The first time I used Linux was at an old job, and we used Xubuntu for desktop, Debian for servers, and Raspbian on the Raspberry Pis, but technically Xubuntu would have been the first. I currently use KDE neon as my daily driver

Minix.

But then I wised up and switched to FreeBSD.

Back in 2004, I had a SuSE Linux professional 9.2 on 5 CDs and 2 DVDs. I repeat: SEVEN DISKS!! Even without internet access - which I did not have at that time - it felt like all apps accessible through packet manager. You just had to swap discs when prompted. I just took it out in fond memory... SuSE Linux 9.2

My first was Ubuntu about a decade ago. Didn't stick with it at the time. I wouldn't choose Ubuntu for almost any purpose today, but I think at the time it was fine. (By "almost" I mean that there possibly exists a good use case, but I cannot currently think of one.)