Your Linux Timeline

[richbarna]

I found a picture of a Linux timeline (It's Spanish, but pretty self explanatory).
http://www.kde-look.org/content/files/38440-linea-del-tiempo-linux-distros_ver03b.jpg

It brought back fond memories of me and my friends getting hold of a copy of SuSE in 1994 (http://ftp.ch.debian.org/mirror/suse-1194/) from my mates older brother who was 1337 and told us stories of bulletin boards and hacking. Believe me, this guy was so full of BS, but he thought he was the UK's answer to Kevin Mitnik.

Anyway, after dreams of being 1337 hackers and all the talk of setting up a BB we couldn't even get the computer connected to the internet on dial-up (and nor could my mate's older brother) Lol.

What is YOUR linux timeline? What distro did you first use? Did you want to be a LEET Hacker too ?

[Raistlin355]

Of course we wanted to be hackers, we wouldn't be here otherwise. My first distro that I used on MY machine was Redhat 7.3 I think, in 2002. I had been using unix/linux systems off and on before then and was more familiar with Debian systems as that is what my uncle was using and gave me.

[woedend]

thats cool. Its interesting that debian and slackware both came out around the same time...and didn't have so many offshoots until almost 10 years later or so.
Couldnt tell you the years, it was a while back though...I started with linux inside of windows(pre winxp of course)...phatlinux and winlinux. Didnt get the use of them just thought they were cool. Tried installing mandrake but couldnt get far. also used beos for a while...it was nice but didn't have the backing needed really...this was right before be went under. (I look forward to haiku though)the end until 2004 or so when windows died and i had no backup copy. Went looking for mandrake but noticed ubuntu on top at distrowatch( that site had stuck in my head from before)...gave it a try and since my hd was erased anyways let it work its magic...and by god it worked and it worked well! from there I just learned what I could and made my way through. Used fedora for a while in there(FC3). Ive tried probably 20 distros since, always came back to ubuntu. Right now on arch for the time being, but ill be back at ubuntu :).
but no, never wanted to be a hacker.

[aysiu]

Of course we wanted to be hackers, we wouldn't be here otherwise. I don't want to be a hacker.

My first distro was Blag, which I used for about a day or two in 2004. Then I gave up on Linux for a year.

My first real distro was Mepis, which I used for a month in April 2005. Then I switched to Ubuntu in May 2005, and I've been using it ever since.

[Raistlin355]

I don't want to be a hacker.


Hackings not a bad thing................

[aysiu]

Hackings not a bad thing................
I know. I don't want to be a hacker or a cracker. I'm just a user.

[MethodOne]

The first distro I have heard of was Mandrake, which I found for $20 at Wal-Mart. The first one I used was Damn Small, which I have on my old Compaq laptop. I'm currently running Kubuntu on a hand-me-down box. Sometime in the future I'm going to:

-get an Intel iMac for my OSX and Windows work and put Kubuntu, MEPIS, or Linspire on the laptop I'm typing this message from.

or

-build a system with previous generation parts and dual-boot Kubuntu and Linspire.

[Rhapsody]

Circa 1998: First heard about Linux. Considered trying it, but decided to let it mature before attempting any commitments.

1998-March 2006: Various thoughts about Linux, without much investigation.

Mid-March 2006: Decided to finally start using Linux, but didn't know which distro to use.

Late-March 2006: Got several tips to try Ubuntu, tried live CD for Ubuntu but ended up installing Kubuntu.

Early-April 2006: Installed Kubuntu. The install was screwed up by my carelessness after less than 24 hours. Reinstall went smoothly though.

1st June 2006: Dapper Drake is released. I add it to my ever-growing To-Do list.

Early-June 2006: I begin to get extremely lazy in my maintainence of Kubuntu, just like I did with Windows XP. We have arrived.

Late-June 2006: After looking back, I marvel that all problems with Ubuntu have been restricted to minor program crashes. I no longer fear OS crashes, because they just don't happen anymore. This makes me able to relax with my PC, something I had thought was impossible at one point. How the hell did I use Windows for 10 years?

1st July 2006: Dapper Drake is now a month old. I keep inventing reasons not to upgrade.

2nd July 2006: Minor power cut resets my PC in the middle of a session. Kubuntu reacts with indifference. Still using Brezzy Badger though...

[Mathias-K]

Ubuntu based of MEPIS? The timeline seems somewhat wrong :)

[kigina]

my timeline goes like this

Ubuntu - late 2005
Some other distros + Ubuntu for about a month - 2006
Ubuntu - current (2006)

[Rhapsody]

Ubuntu based of MEPIS? The timeline seems somewhat wrong :)
Look closer at the lines. Ubuntu is shown branching off Debian.

[bluenova]

Ubuntu based of MEPIS? The timeline seems somewhat wrong :)
Eh? It clearly shows they a both on seperate branches of Debian.

[richbarna]

To continue,
I first started getting really interested in Linux in 1998 with Mandrake, as a windows user I wanted a GUI that was relatively easy to install and set up.

Between 1998 and 2006 I tried all the distros on the list apart from Lindows.

The thing that kept me going back to windows was the fact that I couldn't get online with a USB modem and dial-up was too expensive.

It wasn't until Ubuntu 4.10 that a friend gave me an old router to try, and it was like a whole new world had opened up, so I bought myself a second hand router and that was it, Ubuntu always.

I was dual booting with windows up until about 2 months ago when I finally got rid of my Xp. I still have things that I can't use on Linux but I will find alternatives or use someone elses computer if need be.

The funny thing is, after all these years of playing with Linux, I have only really learned about it in the last year or so.

Thank you Ubuntu Forum Members.

[BuffaloX]

Red hat five years ago.
Then Suse about a year later.
Then Suse again about year later.

None of these lasted more than a couble of days.

This time it was actually my wife, that got me started.
She had tried out a couple of distros late 2005, which didn't work for her purposes. Mostly composing music.

Then about March this year, she found Ubuntu ( 5.1 ).
Now we both use Ubuntu 6.06 as main OS.
Windows is now only for gaming, but hopefully we can soon scrap Windows altogether.

[bruce89]

Mine:
Mandrake for 2 days (on a spare computer) : March 2005
Ubuntu ever since.

[hizaguchi]

Debian (Sarge) --> Ubuntu (Warty) --> Ubuntu (Hoary) --> Ubuntu (Breezy, for about 2 days) --> [A ton of less bloated but ultimately inferior distros/BSDs] --> Ubuntu (Dapper)

[bluenova]

Mine: Fedora Core for 1 year > Ubuntu 4 months

[Mathias-K]

Look closer at the lines. Ubuntu is shown branching off Debian.

Ah, you're right. Ubuntu seemed to pop right out of the MEPIS logo at first :)

[nocturn]

september 1997: RedHat 5 (dual boot with Win95)
1998: SuSE Linux (5, I think)
september 1999: End of dual booting, SuSE linux only
Arround 2002 Mandrake
2003 - 2004 Gentoo
november 2004: Ubuntu Warty
April 2005: Ubuntu Hoary
October 2005: Ubuntu Breezy
May 2006: Ubuntu Dapper

My server was running FreeBSD between 2001 and 2003

[AndyCooll]

My Linux timeline started around June 2005 and it was Fedora for a couple of months, and Ubuntu ever since

So ... Fedora Core 3/4-->Ubuntu 5.04-->Ubuntu 5.10-->Ubuntu 6.06

:cool:

[Carrots171]

2003 - A friend installed Mandrake on my old 350 mhz Dell computer running Windows 98.
2004 - I built a PC and installed Mandrake on it. To me, Mandrake was an infuriating OS. I was in RPM hell, trying to deal with Mozilla plugins, NVIDIA drivers, and DVD playback.
2005 - I gave up on Mandrake and moved to PCLinuxOS. This was the first Linux distro that really impressed me. Nvidia drivers, plugins, and codecs worked right out of the box. You could install RPM's through Synaptic, but the selection was limited and I still found myself searching Google for RPM's and dependencies. I then found Ubuntu, and tried installing it along with my new Nvidia 6200. Unfortunately, the card didn't like the open-source nvidia drivers included with Ubuntu. I ended up installing MEPIS, because it supported my new card right out of the box, unlike Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS. I still wanted to install Ubuntu because I loved how GNOME was set up in Ubuntu and I liked how you could get programs like Automatix that set up all of the codecs/plugins for you. So I figured out how to install the Nvidia drivers from the console and made the switch to Ubuntu. I then reached Linux Nirvana, with no more annoying problems to deal with!!!!
2006 - Upgraded to Ubuntu Dapper Drake.

[RAV TUX]

I found a picture of a Linux timeline (It's Spanish, but pretty self explanatory).
http://www.kde-look.org/content/files/38440-linea-del-tiempo-linux-distros_ver03b.jpg

It brought back fond memories of me and my friends getting hold of a copy of SuSE in 1994 (http://ftp.ch.debian.org/mirror/suse-1194/) from my mates older brother who was 1337 and told us stories of bulletin boards and hacking. Believe me, this guy was so full of BS, but he thought he was the UK's answer to Kevin Mitnik.

Anyway, after dreams of being 1337 hackers and all the talk of setting up a BB we couldn't even get the computer connected to the internet on dial-up (and nor could my mate's older brother) Lol.

What is YOUR linux timeline? What distro did you first use? Did you want to be a LEET Hacker too ?

nice timeline, if I get the time I would like to translate and edit this to be more complete.

[RAV TUX]

This thread will be moved to the Other OS talk forum

[Rhapsody]

31st August 2006: Finally upgrade to Dapper Drake. Nothing can go wrong.

1st September 2006: Something went wrong.

2nd September 2006: OK, I was just being stupid. It's fine now.

3rd September 2006: Broken again. Live CD won't cooperate. Then it does. Then it doesn't. Nerves are frayed.

4th September 2006: Plan looks to finally be coming together. Hopefully.

5th September 2006: ???

[Anonii]

Let see...

*At the age of 13.5~ , I tried installing Gentoo, after a discussion with a friend in a forum. My English sucked, I didnt know **** about Linux (I knew nothing, to be exact), and I failed after a week of tries.
*After the Gentoo failure, I purchased Mandrake Linux (Yes.. purchased :(... I had 56k then, and I also wanted the Desktop edition and not the first one.). I used Mandrake for 3-4months.
*When I was confident, I installed Gentoo. After a lot of tries, again. I made it, I made it to the freaking KDE screen :P I was so happy... After 2 months~, I got bored and installed Windows.
*I used windows for 1year and 3months~, till the age of 15.5, I was mainly playing MMOs, starting with Lineage finishing with WoW. I'd like to add, that in those 2 years, I did 2 formats, and my computer had less than 3crashes, in Windows, yes in Windows (I'm just saying that to point out, that a correctly maintenanced PC doesnt crash even with Windows.)
*Installed Debian, used it for 7months, learned many things about APT, configuration files etc.
*Installed Gentoo, I didnt like emerge because I was used in APT, uninstalled it the same day.
*Finally, I installed Ubuntu. And I've been using it for 2months now.

(To be continued)

[Rockyhead]

2004 autumn - First experiences with Linux, Debian on the university's computers. Didn't really learn anything yet, or care about it.

2005 - Network topology designing in the army, on a ruggerized Linux-box. That's all I can say about it legally :( My wonderful instructor really taught me about all I know about Linux :D

2006 - Finally got fed up with WinXP and installed Dapper on my laptop. I'm loving it. Right now (really, currently), I'm putting Xubuntu on the old machine...

[Erik Trybom]

2002 - got a school laptop with some special version of Redhat on it. Didn't like it particularly, but at least I got a first taste of Linux. Gave up on it when I didn't get my USB mouse to work.

2004 - tested Slackware on my home computer. It was too difficult though and I couldn't do much so I gave up after a few days.

2005 - got a new CD player for my laptop and installed Breezy. Used it for a few days, used Windows for a while, and finally decided I liked Ubuntu better.

Now I run Dapper and feel more at home with it than any Windows version.

[xhaan]

Not sure of actual dates but...
First started messing around in remote shells through telnet like around '96?
Got Trinux some years ago to fool around with, used it for various things, mostly learning.
Tried DSL, used it only a couple of times.
A couple years ago I decided to install FreeBSD and use it as a http and ftp server, after a while I tried Debian, then went back to FreeBSD, then switched back to Debian and stuck with it so far, it's still on my other box.
Just a few days ago I installed Ubuntu next to XP on my main PC, so far I haven't actually used XP since then.

And that's about it.

[Magnes]

Don't know the exact dates, but:
1. RedHat 5.0 - 1994 (?? I don't remember the exact version nor the date, I was using Window Maker as window manager, which was running very slow on my Pentium 100Mhz, 8 or 24MB)
2. RedHat 7.0
3. Mandrake 9.0 (or maybe 7 or 8?)
4. Mandrake 10.1
5. Ubuntu 5.10 (well, beginning of 2006)
6. Ubuntu 6.06 (now)

Ubuntu is the first linux I use on the daily basis and it is becoming my main OS.

[SlCKB0Y]

I first used redhat 5.1 in 1998
6.0 and 6.1 in 1999 as well as Caldera (which was pretty big at this time and missing off the timeline).
About this time I started using slackware, I started using slackware 7 fulltime and got rid of my Windows partition.
Since this I have tried Debian, Gentoo, *BSD, SuSE, Mandrake, more redhat, Ubuntu.

Out if these I have used Debian, Gentoo, Slackware and Ubuntu the longest.

[jsage]

Linux - first heard of it around 93 - Yggdrasil and Slackware. But since I played mostly with SysVr4, I was more interested in BSD (free and mostly identical to SysV) and the Walnut Creek CD-ROM.

Downloaded Caldera Linux in 97, played with it for a month, then forgot about it.

In 99 started on the RedHat track: 6, 7, 8 ... stopped at RHEL 3.0 and let my subscription lapse since I'd never used their support.

Played around with Gentoo in 2003, made my head hurt. So I kept on using my old RHEL in a VMWare window as needed.

Have been watching Ubuntu with interest beginning sometime last year. Took the plunge with Dapper in July. Installed it on my T43p, have since moved on to Edgy. Using it as my main email, document & internet PC. No Windows, no VMWare, no dual-boot.

In the meantime have experimented with SLED, FC6 and Dapper/Edgy on various laptops and desktops here in the office, trying to gauge user reaction / user experience.

john

[jclmusic]

2003: first tried slax and liked it, but decided to stop when i accidently installed it on my dad's windoze computer. :-#
2005: bought my own computer and experimented with various live cds, but never installed because all my university work is on windows.
2006: learnt how to build my own computers, which meant i could install :D started off with fedora, then debian, and eventually settled on ubuntu which i'm still using about 6 months later :)

[Seiti]

My timeline:

prior 2000: DOS / Windows 95 / Windows 98 / Windows 2K / Windows XP
2001: Debian Potato at college / Windows XP at home
2003: Gentoo at college / Windows XP ate home
2004: Debian Sarge on laptop (learned a LOT here!)
2006/07: Ubuntu on newer laptop!

[Jhongy]

My timeline:

1990-1996 on-and-off DOS, then Windows 3.11

1996 - 1999 At university -- Windows for Workgroups 3.11 & Windows 95. However half of the Uni used Sun SparcStation clients on UNIX time-sharing mainframes... these were more 'fun' to use; even Windows computers and the Internet were mostly still for geeks.

1999 - moved to China. Used Win95 & Win98 (pirated, as not allowed to buy English version locally). LEarned how to fix broken computers and ultimately build my own.

2000/2001 - experimented with Mandrake and Redhat. Preferred Mandrake. Probably kept it dual-booting for around 1 month. Could not get sound working, and never really "got it". Still needed my games. Returned back to Windows, upgrading to XP, and managing a small network with Win2000 and WinXP computers.

2001 - 2006 Generally get increasingly frustrated with MS software / proprietary software in general. Find that most software is 'crippled' on purpose. Despise the proliferation of proprietary user interfaces for things like printer / peripheral drivers. Do like and use MS Media Center Edition. Novelty of games is wearing off as credibility of console games increases.

2006: Bored with computer. Want to upgrade. Nowing doing quite a bit of web development and PHP programming. Was looking forward to Vista, but it's still not out yet, and reviews of Beta do not make it look attractive at all. Check out Mandrake site again... now Mandriva. Seems 'off'. Check out distrowatch and everyone is talking about Ubuntu. download Dapper to try out... error during install. Re-burn slowly. Try again... works!

Decide I like Dapper... Windows is due for its bi-annual re-install due to various glitches. So buy a new HDD and re-install both from scrath using a carefully-planned partition layout. Realise that Windows is *a lot* harder to install than Ubuntu.

Several things still not working -- slow printer; multiple monitors; evolution and OOo too ugly. So still dual boot into Windows. Rarely spend time in Dapper, but its intuitive layout brings me further along the road to 'getting it'. Keep meaning to move Windows to top of boot list but never get round to it.

Fast forward to early this month -- have some time free so decide to make a 'go' of fixing the monitor issue. Upgrade to Feisty. Beginning to feel at home, and decide to dump Windows for good. Precipitated by my general avoidance of Vista, and my anger at all the DRM creeping in and stymying my efforts to create a truly useful general purpose PC. I also found myself mostly using FOSS software on Windows anyway. Windows partition duly erased.

There are many things - user interface and otherwise - that still need improving. But the speed of development on this side of the fence is astonishing. The future timeline is more interesting. Linux has a bright future. Windows doesn't. I actually want to upgrade my computer again to take even more advantage of the OS. I haven't wanted to do that in Windows for years.

[igknighted]

Neat thread... great find Seiti.

My timeline:
Dec 2005: Slackware - man, this was tough... lilo? no scroll wheel? Took me about a week to find the gui as slack 10.2 started in runlevel 3 by default lol.

April 2006: Got a shipment of Suse 10.1, Mandriva 2006 and Fedora Core 5 CDs. Mandriva never caught, but Suse and Fedora made me appreciate linux more.

May 2006: Was displeased with the above, so I downloaded a one disk distro... Ubuntu. Played with it all summer and finally caught on... linux was finally cool!

August 2006: Finally a high speed internet connection. Windows is quickly ditched and many distros graced my hard disks between then and now.

April 2007: After so much expirimentation, well over 100 cds used, the chase is growing weary. I am settling in to Fedora, Kubuntu and SAM Linux as my primary OS's, with an older box running Edgy server for my website. I am on the beginners team and helping the development team of SAM (mainly documentation and forums, but also trying to learn to write some programs too :)), and deep down I love Fedora so I keep it around. It feels weird to settle down after so much trying out, but its a good feeling.

[ThinkBuntu]

Started using in late late 2006 :^)

Former Mac user, so I'm more of an adopter than a refugee.

[bobbocanfly]

Summer Last Year - Found out about Ubuntu, but dad warned me off it saying "it was too hard to install" and "i would kill the XP Partition". But kept reading guides and annoying him until he let me.

October Last Year - Got a brand new computer and installed Ubuntu 6.10 on the older one. Immediately loved it, but couldn't be bothered changing the wires around to get onto the old box. Also i kept managing to break my hard drive set-ups and stuff. Cue at least 5 reinstalls (Thank god Ubuntu is so easy to install).

March 2007 - Got a bit bored of Ubuntu and was annoyed at how impossible it was to put Apache on Ubuntu (Me being a total noob, didn't know about apt-get :( ), so downloaded Fedora Core. Had that on for a few days and loved it, but couldnt get MySQL to work properly (kept getting weird access denied errors) then someone sent me a BASH script to install a LAMP server on Ubuntu (this is when i learned about apt). Installed that and set it up, then download a ripped copy of Mac OS X x86, which subsequently wipes my hard drive. A day later and i have this Ubuntu install going and i LOVE IT!

[chili555]

My timeline started in about 2000, when I bought a retail version of Mandrake from a dusty back shelf at Best Buy. I also bought an open-box returned 20 GB harddrive. I went inside the case of our computer and switched the IDE cable to the new drive. After I installed Mandrake, I was hooked on linux for good!

I went from Mandrake to RedHat and, when it forked, to Fedora Core, all the way to FC6. I was having trouble with it locking up on my ancient Thinkpad T23 and tried Ubuntu. It has worked beautifully and now all but one computer in my house run Ubuntu. Even my 60-something wife uses Kubuntu!

[tscook]

2002ish: Fedora for a few months, didn't really care for it.
March 2006 - January 2007: Ubuntu
January 2007 - Now: Arch

[tehbeermang]

Saturday: got old laptop, installed all the Win32 software needed for schoolwork, left myself room to grow
Sunday: adjusted partitions, installed feisty
Monday: got Compiz to work
Tuesday: got Beryl to work, figured out how beautiful synaptic is, installed Java and Eclipse, found out that 256m of ram isn't enough to run both Beryl and Eclipse...
Wednesday: researching/pricing hardware for mythtv front/backends from the windows box, eyeballing the yellow "updates are ready" Win32 pop-up with a bit of hesitance, it's probably that pesky genuine notification trying to install again.

[newlinux]

92-96: My first real UNIX use was on RSAIX, then DECMIPS, tthen HP-UX, then SunOS (turning to Solaris) and then IRIX.

95-96: Then finally i bought a win95 PC (my first PC) I hated it, and tried to put redhat on it. Worked out alright, but after a couple weeks i went with netBSD.

97-2006: All windows NT-2000-XP (just shoot me)

However, in 2003 I bought two DirecTivos that ran linux, and in 2005 I did run dd-wrt on my WRT54G routers, that qualifies as Linux.

2006-present: Dapper->Edgy->Feisty on most machines, Debian on one machine (cause it allowed me to do a net install on an old HP omnibook that didn't have a CD drive). Also still run dd-wrt, and I have a Ziovia (Zensonic) z500 that runs linux as well... Ironically, I modified a hack to the Tivos and installed put it on one of my ubuntu servers to show caller ID info on all of my computers when I get a call... Especially useful when I'm watching Myth. So it all converges.

[newlinux]

Timeline for those that care:
http://kde-files.org/CONTENT/content-files/44218-linuxdistrotimeline-7.2.png

[luchardi]

Started in 1999 to current ..

Conectiva Linux 3.0 -> Redhat 7.1 -> Redhat 8 -> Redhat 9 -> SuSE 9 -> FC 5 -> Ubuntu 6.06 -> Ubuntu 6.10 -> Elive -> Ubuntu / Kubuntu 7.04

[Scruffynerf]

Win 3.11 for workgroups
Win 95 (b)
Win XP
Heard of Linux at a friends place... just about when Dapper was being released. (He was on Red Hat something)
Got my hands on a Helix LiveCD. Highly Impressed, although I couldn't for the life of me work out what 2/3rds of the apps were. (Side rant: why the flaming hell don't people name their applications logically??? Application name QWERTY might be nice and gimmicky and all, but WTF does it do? Is it a text thing? No, it's a <insert random technical application that nobody uses here>)
Tried installalling Edgy when first released. It royally mutilated my box. Had to re-install windows. The first of 2 windows re-installations.
About 4 months ago installed Ubuntu Ultimate 1.3 (based off edgy). Installed without a problem. Currently dualbooting, mainly because I like games.
Am currently looking also at SAM 2007.

[guitarmaniac]

early 2006: Puppy linux
a few days later: PCLinuxOS
as soon as the CDs I ordered arrived: Ubuntu Breezy
Have used Ubuntu ever since, upgrading every 6 months.
Played around with a lot of other distros, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Damn Small, Morphix, SuSE, Mandriva, Mepis, Dreamlinux, Fedora, CentOS thats most of them :P

[smiggs]

My first taste of Linux was with Mandrake in something like 2001/2 a new laptop for university was purchased, my university work mandated I used Windows and I lacked hard disk space so I had to switch back. I've been on Ubuntu since September 2006 when my new PC along and the laptop that had Windows on it exclusively is now infact Ubuntu exclusive.

Still need to keep Windows around for work and professional curiosity but I'm playing around with a few distributions, I've installed PCLinuxOS in an effort to get to know KDE a bit better and use Knoppix for a bit of emergency PC repair.

[HymnToLife]

First Linux, Debian Slink in 1999. Moved to Ubuntu with Hoary (I also tried a few other distros in between but never really liked them) and moved from Ubuntu back to Debian with Edgy. Moved from Debian to Gentoo then to Slack a few months ago. My current setup is a quad-boot FreeBSD, Gentoo, Slack, Ubuntu.

[j.miller565]

my timeline:

Ubuntu: October 2006 till May the 15th 2007
OpenSUSE: 15th May 2007 ...

[antonc]

Hmmm..

Around '93 decided I needed to learn some form of *nix.
While looking around, came across Linux (0.99.something kernel, IIRC)
Played around with it...
Ended up getting experience with SCO, BSD, NeXT, Solaris, OSX along the way, but always had a Linux box somewhere.
In around '98 I decided to drop windows as my primary OS and go to Linux... (Always been a Slackware fan)
'Bout 2000 or somewhere there ended up with Debian, and been using Ubuntu ever since it was released..

Use it for CAD, CFD, 3D design for CAM, general aero engineering stuff, etc...

[FuturePilot]

The first distro I ever tried was FreeSpire back around Jul-Aug 2006. It didn't last too long, maybe a couple of days. Then I tried Ubuntu and immediately fell in love with it. Ever since then I've mainly been with Ubuntu. I have experimented with just about every other major distro but have always returned to Ubuntu.

[shijirou]

1999 - Heard about Mandrake so I tried it out for a month but later scrapped it because I needed windows to do my school work.

2001 - Got Mandrake again which was dual booted with Windows 2000. Stayed for a couple of months but went back to windows when I got a new PC.

2002 - Got Redhat and used it for 2 months but eventually went back to windows 2000.

February 2007 - My father got a laptop with Windows Vista on it. ( yeah i know... :( )

April 2007 - I got annoyed on how amazingly slow Windows Vista was on a Centrino Duo laptop so I dual booted with Ubuntu 7.04. (Vista is still there because my dad uses it). Also installed Ubuntu 7.04 on both my Office PCs the one I use to moderate chats, forums and blogs has ubuntu, while my main test gaming PC is dual booted with Ubuntu.

Last Night - Installed Xubuntu on my home PC which is the primary OS. I only keep Win XP for gaming...

[jackmc]

Early 07 - installed Ubuntu

Two Days ago - Hard drive crashed, lost the lot. Ordered a new one off ebay.

Today - new HD, no windows, just ubuntu :)

[jethro10]

Jan 2000 - Tried Suse at work, proved I could make a samba connection for client/server. Lasted 2 weeks.

2003 - Tried Suse at Home, could not get wireless to work and I needed it at that time. Lasted approx 2 weeks. But subscribed to Linux Format I think it was for a year.

March 2006 - At Home, decided I could afford the cost so bough a cheap PC, built a nice wooden unit for it, bought a homeplug setup (still no wireless!) installed Ubuntu and put it in the living room as the main PC. Still running with it, upgraded lots. Use windows PC about once per 2 months.

Dec 2006 - Installed our first linux server at work, just to run an I.M. server, 6 months on and never needed to re-boot.

April 2007 - Installed a spam mail server on the I.M. server. Boy are we pleased.

May 2007 - Building a much better CCTV 'server' to replace our windows one at work. Its going well and everyone at work has now heard of linux.

J

[jruschme]

Hmmm..

Around '93 decided I needed to learn some form of *nix.
While looking around, came across Linux (0.99.something kernel, IIRC)
Played around with it...
Ended up getting experience with SCO, BSD, NeXT, Solaris, OSX along the way, but always had a Linux box somewhere.
In around '98 I decided to drop windows as my primary OS and go to Linux... (Always been a Slackware fan)
'Bout 2000 or somewhere there ended up with Debian, and been using Ubuntu ever since it was released..

Use it for CAD, CFD, 3D design for CAM, general aero engineering stuff, etc...

Finally... someone as old as I! :-)

I was first introduced to Linux back around '93 also. IIRC, I was running SLS or perhaps an early Slackware on a 386sx16 w/4mb RAM and an 80mb disk.

Back then, I was already a Unix developer (mostly SunOS and HP-UX) and was on the quest for a personal Unix box.

Became a BSD user for a while, alternating between FreeBSD (which seemed to have better packages) and NetBSD (which would run on the Sparc 2 I acquired along the way).

Rejoined the Linux fold in '99-'00 with Mandrake. Stayed with that for a couple of years.

Switched to RH8 in '03 and stayed through RH9, FC1 and FC2. I think I quit that after an early version of FC3 trashed my whole system.

Started with Ubuntu with the Warty pre-release and have been loyal since. (Okay, one quick daliance with Slackware 11, but it only lasted a day.)

<<<john>>>

[screaminj3sus]

The first distro I ever heard of was fedora. I was at my friends and he said he downloaded linux (I had no idea it existed) It was fedora core 4. We managed to install it and use it, we soon reinstalled windows on it. After a long while I heard a lot about ubuntu, so I downloaded 6.06, and installed it and dual booted for a while with XP I never could get the sound working which is why I went back to windows (the embarrassing part is I tried unmuting everything in alsanmxer, but I had to turn one thing up, I didn't realize this until I tried feisty) When 6.10 came out I gave it a short try but because I'm an idiot still no sound. Then I tried openSuSE which I thought was amazing because it was my first taste of compiz, and it could read my windows drive, but no sound again. When ffeisty came out I downloaded it, got the sound working and used it for about 3 months. I had everything working perfectly, so what do I do? try more distro's. Right now I am enjoying PClinuxOS. (OMG sound worked out of the box) I forgot to mention I tried (k)buntu Fesity once, I found it HORRIBLE, I like KDE and am using it on PCLOS but I found kubuntu slow and buggy, and when I installed Nvidia drivers (Which I have done many times on many distro's without problems) and the screen just went black and I couldn't do anything.