Redhat 5.2 on cd. I learned a lot about compiling kernels as it didn’t support scsi emulation which was required for an ide cd burner. I think I ended up on Mandrake for a while before bouncing around including LFS. Then gentoo for many many years. And I’ve come full circle and been back on fedora for about 10 years now.
The first computer I had personally ran ubuntu, but counting other computers before that it could have been either ubuntu or centos that was first, I don't remember which
Ubuntu, opensuse, or freebsd. I can't remember what I installed first, since it was around 2006-2007. There was a piece about Linux in some PC magazine and I had to check it out.
Debian was first Linux, Sun was first UNIX.
i honestly didn't do too much linux growing up; i was more involved with radio shack and trsdos and then win 3.1 (since we only had the one family computer; tandy sensation, whoo). then onto windows 2000. it was probably around the early to mid 2000s when i experimented with fedora with one of my coworkers; that was probably the first time i actually did a lot beyond basic commands ssh'ing into a web server on a web host.
Ubuntu because I didn't know anything about it and wanted to see if I could use it to fix my win10 account on my old laptop.
Xandros on an eeePC 901
Xubuntu in a vm on win10, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, OpenSuse Tumbleweed with Kde, and now Nix.
I used Fedora the longest and OpenSuse the shortest as Kde reminded me so much of horrible windows. I've also tried a lot of other distros in a vm or live usb, Linux Mint, Mubuntu, Void linux, the one without any Gnu component(Artix?) and some other ones. I also have ISOs of some other esoteric Oses on my computer, DebianHurd, Redox, can't even remember rn but I'm yet to try them out.
I'm mentally restraining myself from distrohopping to Guix and or FreeBSD as I doubt I'd have the same workflow I have now on NixOS. To have distrohopped this much in the space of 18 months is why I'm a failed Javascript programmer.
Slackware, probably in 1997. My cousin lent me his copy, had like 100 floppies for the install.
Debian, Manjaro, Fedora, Endeavour, OpenSuSE Tumbleweed.
My first Linux experience was trying to install Yellow Dog Linux on my Power Mac G4 in college
RedHat 5.2 in 1998. The manual that came with the box set was amazing.
Boot/root floppies early '92
the family computer running ubuntu from 2010 on. I used it mainly for Web browsing and creating presentations for School. I was able to run League of Legends (that was in 2014 i think) through wine but i think it crashed in about 50% of Games during the loading screen :D. Linux gaming has truly come far since then (and now LoL doesn't run on Linux at all because of Riots Rootkit)
Edubuntu, IT@School
Fedora Core, I don't remember exactly which version it was.
Ubuntu 10.04.
A walk down memory lane
I received a free CD of 10.04 with a computer magazine that I purchased every time I travelled.
The CD was neglected for the better part of that year, until I tried it out of curiosity. I remember setting up a dual boot configuration around two weeks in. I removed Windows around eve of 2011 and never looked back.
Since then I distro hopped every six months but kept coming back to Linux Mint as it nailed the balance between stability and UX, especially for the home machine that would be used by people from diverse age groups.
In those years, GNOME’s UX regressed so terribly with its 3.0 release, that Canonical’s Unity and Mint’s Cinnamon & MATE popped up as a response. One of those didn’t make it by the end of that decade. In those same years, Canonical started alienating its users with questionable decisions. Fedora and Manjaro became stable enough to be recommended for actual daily use. The 2010s was a wild ride.
Though by the start of 2020s, I entered Apple’s walled gardens as I no longer had time to troubleshoot my devices and tools, and expected those to work reliably.
I still use Linux on the home machine as well as the homelab. But I patiently wait for the day Linux is stable for daily use on phones. :-)
Same.
I'm not sure if Yggdrasil or Slackware, which we tried out at the old university computers. But quickly Debian became so much more flexible.
slackware around 1996. the install was about thirteen floppies.
Ubuntu on an orangepi 5 when it released, now Linux Mint dual-booted to windows (haven't booted into windows for ages now) on my main rig. I'll figure out making VR work at some point I hope, it's all I really use windows for now.
redacted
SuSE linux 4.2 about 1994-6 ish? Fond memories of having to roll my own modelines to get crt monitors working. Used the various versions until the sell out to Novell and the controversy with Microsoft. Then a really big gap with some macs and now I’ve just started using Mint on a mini itx machine I’ve put together just for that use.
fedora 💀
Opensuse without knowing that it was Linux 20 years ago. Knowing was 3 years later with Mandrake.
Elementary OS 6 Years ago
Opensuse ca. 18 to 16 years ago
Think it was pop OS because "gaming" but never really had Linux as main os on my pc because gaming and modding and few other things that are just more complicated compared to what I'm used to. Being told to just use arch also does not help when I don't want to use terminal. And also don't know if you can run vr on Linux without problems. Current have installed mint on second drive(HDD) will start looking more into Linux when windows 10 stops getting support. But I'm a noob so what do I know.
I found a distro that would install on the windows file system and boot. Apparently it was slackware based didn't have a concept in my head of package managers couldn't figure out how to install gaim (now pidgin) gave up. Didn't go back for another 4 years doing C in college. Didn't look back from there.
Ubuntu 12 or 14 on a hdd
Fedora Core 2 :)
MkLinux around 1997, but mostly NetBSD back then.
Suse linux. I didnt know what partitioning was, so I partitioned my hard drive 6 times and messed up my bootloader. I didn't know what that was too, so I had to figure out how to do all this....with a Suse linux disk from the library.
Later on, I discovered Wesnoth and that was an awesome game. I also played around with Ubuntu 6+, Slackware, DSL, and a host of others. Its been a fun ride. Nowdays, I like PopOS and Manjaro (steamdeck). Most anything debian.
Red Hat 5.1 CD from a magazine. Ended up at fedora and couldn't be happier.
I tried to have a go at ubuntu but my hardware was pretty crap and it didn't work, I can't remember my first one that worked but it was probably debian or alpine or something
I'm not sure what the first distro I installed was but I used to have a Linux VM running 24/7 on my Windows machine back in '06. I ran folding@home on my athlon 64 and for some reason the client at the time ran faster in a Linux VM on windows than it did in native windows. Pretty sure I was running Ubuntu but I can't be certain.
First must've been Caldera Linux in 1996 or 1997. Absolutely wild to compare with contemporaries at the time.
Hint: :q!
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