What was your first Linux experience?

[Kopachris]

My very first experience with Linux was a Knoppix LiveCD that my dad had. We only booted into it twice I think (I was 10, 5 years ago). I thought the desktop was really cool.

My first real experience with Linux was Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft. Surprisingly enough, I installed it on my PowerBook G4 to try to install WINE to run Windows programs. :P That really taught me a lot about how computers work. Until I figured out how to get the Hardy CD to boot on my Mac, I kept my Edgy CD handy for recovery purposes. It really came in handy when I was trying to get the data I backed up on my external hard drive back after trying to install some sort of Linux with good PPC support. For some reason, OS X wouldn't read the hard drive, so I had to boot into Edgy Eft to do it.

[mamamia88]

unfortunately my first linux experience was when i heard i could install it on my ps3

[binbash]

Gentoo was my first (i used slackware before that but i only used it for 1 week) , used it for 4-5 years

[jimi_hendrix]

when i saw my friends computer running PCLOS...it looked beatiful and i wanted it

but ubuntu liked my hardware better

[yther]

About 10 years ago when I was happily using OS/2 as my desktop operating system, I started hearing that IBM wasn't going to develop it any more. Around the same time I started to see discussions mentioning Linux in various newsgroups, and I saw some cool-looking screenshots of what I later learned was AfterStep. At the time, net-based installation was common; you could download a couple of floppy images and use them to bootstrap your system, then download the rest. I tried that, with Slackware I think, but when I couldn't get it to work I decided to buy a book with a CD attached, which was probably a good idea as I was on dialup!

So that wound up being RedHat Linux. The book taught me a lot about how to use the system, and of course I learned a lot by fooling around. Eventually I ditched OS/2 and ran Linux as my main OS for quite a while. :)

[Simian Man]

Red Hat 7 back in 2003. Good times.

[Mia-Linux]

I am having my first experience as we speak. I finally took the plunge (in the midst of a lot of Windows directed ](*,)) and downloaded Ubuntu three days ago. Seeing as I am quite so new to this, I am struggling massively, but enjoying it :D.

[steveneddy]

Knoppix. I even installed it. Fell in love with Linux at that point.

I eventually found Ubuntu. Been here ever since.

[jimmyhacker]

My first experience was in 2007,when i seen a video on YouTube called "Ubuntu Beryl vs. Aero Vista" and i said "Wath da...This OS really rocks!" and i switched to Ubuntu.I spended 1 month for Installing Ubuntu because my PC had problems.So installed ubuntu then switched to Puppy....Then i began to test distributions...Man,Ubuntu is not just an OS for me.It`s a revilution for my life.Ubuntu is the thing because why i didn`t broke computers 4ever.Ubuntu said to me "You need me dumb!I will make you love PC`s again."...Thanks for Ubuntu community.I`m cryin` now....Im so happy with Ubuntu.

[animestudiogeek]

My first GNU/Linux experience was when I learned I could put it onto my Nintendo DS. Never ended up doing it but it got me familiarized with the name at least. Then I was reading Little Brother by Cory Doctorow and he mentioned Paranoid Linux. That got me to look up the wikipedia page for Linux.

Then, my first actual experience was when I was ordering my new laptop. I saw an option to have Ubuntu Linux installed when I received it and took a leap of faith. I must say I'm glad I did!

[Vince4Amy]

Slackware in 2002 and then Mandrake soon after, SuSE 9.1 and then I used Kubuntu 6.06 for a year or 2. I switched back to OpenSuSE 10.3 and now I use Slackware 12.2, OpenSuSE 11.1 & Fedora 10.

[Telekinesis]

RedHat 5.1. Not that Enterprise stuff. =P

Since then I've spent a lot of time with other distros. Early versions of SuSE and Mandrake were pretty fun to mess with. I still have all the original boxes.

Linux has come a long way.

[Martin Marshalek]

Ubuntu 8.10, in October. I had read articles about Linux for a long time and wanted to see what it was. Setting up my dual boot and all of the setup has taught me a lot about computers. I now dual boot and love Linux for "nerd stuff."

[Denestria]

My shell only internet account in the early/mid 90's, using commands like pine, pico, ftp, from, gopher. After that I installed RedHat and was soon using it exclusively.

[Jesterday]

Mine was Slackware in 1997, the Redhat in 1998, then Corel Linux in 1999, then Windows for a bunch of years, then Ubuntu a couple years ago, where I have been pretty well ever since.

[kidux]

I first tried RH9 about 5 years ago while I was deployed since I had a lot of time on my hands sitting in the network ops center. I didn't like it too much, so I tried Gentoo, but it didn't like my laptop, then FC3 for a while before I settled for Slackware 10, IIRC. Ran Slack for a few years until last year when I jumped over to Ubuntu and it variants, mainly Xubuntu. Pretty soon I'm going to setup an Arch install and see how I like that.

[Bölvaður]

2004 :
I actually saw Fedora for few seconds where my nephew showed me his laptop.

2005 :

My very first experience with Linux was a Knoppix LiveCD
ditto

2006 :
Was shown Debian's apt-get at work by a good guy that was doing BS degree at same time as I. He was very enthusiastic about showing it to me because I was the only one that seemed to understand what was going on ^^

2007 :
I install ubuntu.

[richg]

My first experience was a new Lindows 4.0 configured desktop PC I bought from Walmart 12-2003. Minimum heartburn. It is a backup PC running Ubuntu 8.04 right now. My primary desktop purchased new with Freespire 2.0.8 now runs Mint 6.
I am not a techie type. I just want a OS with good security and no bloatware.

Rich

[chris200x9]

my first epierence was xubuntu, I was running windows xp and it was slooooooooooow I really like civ 4 and heard about WINE and thought to myself I wonder if this would run better under WINE than nativly so knowing next to nothing about computers I installed xubuntu over windows. However this was anything but good I had dial up at the time and a winmodem and could not get online. I tried various linux distros (even paid for suse 10.3) but nothing worked. Eventually I reinstalled windows.

My second expierence was freshmen year in college, I got a shiny new macbook and dabbled with dual booting linux. I must have wiped it and went back to only mac os x at least 20 times, then one of my proffesors for film lit was using ubuntu and it kind of resparked my interest. I reinstalled ubuntu via bootcamp and started idleing in my university's lug irc channel.

Where I am now is I have complety wiped my macbook of mac os x (I do not like apples business practices) and ran ubuntu for a while but I have noticed random freezes on anything more recent than 7.10 so I have successfully switched to archlinux and have been happy. Also about a year ago I built a desktop, after much distro hopping it is now running gentoo.

[hkgonra]

sme server about 6 years ago.

[blueshiftoverwatch]

Fedora Core 2 back in late 2004.

[Cenotaph]

iirc, i first tried Red Hat Linux and Mandrake soon after. It might have been the other way around though. This was around 2002/2003

[Omnios]

My first experience with Linux was Ubuntu a few years back spending a week getting my xserver to work with crappy bad id monitor. I have been hooked ever since.

[TravisNewman]

Slackware 3.5 back in Fall 98, beginning of my senior year, two months after I got my first computer. I had only recently stopped double-clicking web links. I was way over my head back then, but it interested me.

[R.Bucky]

Puppy Linux 2007

[mpsii]

RedHat 4.0 in 1998. Saw a guy at work messing with it and wondered "What the hell is that?"

I used a Packard Hell Pentium 166 that had Windows 95b on it. I wiped the drive an did an install of RedHat 4.0. I remember thinking how cool it was to recompile the kernel, until I broke somethings. Then, I thought it was bullsh** that I "had" to recompile the kernel to get performance. Recompiling back then on my P166 (non-MMX) with 64 MB of RAM took for-FSCKing-EVER...

I went back to windows until 2001 with Debian on an old (at the time) laptop.

I found Ubuntu in 2004 and Gentoo in 2005. I basically keep up with development, but because of work-related apps, I haven't completely migrated.

[konqueror7]

2005, SuSE Enterprise (forgot the version),,,was curious what linux was (read it on oracle magazine), installed it without even knowing what swap files are or filesystem there are, just wanted to install it...:p

after 1 week uninstalled it, then around 2007 heard about ubuntu, dual-booted, but reformatted again, then last year, revisited ubuntu again, now been using it as my main OS...:guitar:

[handy]

Trying some miserably difficult to work with early version of Red Had in the mid 1990's, that came off a magazine CD.

I tried out the first version of Mandrake, which was so much easier than Red Hat, but still not useful to me yet.

I owned Caldera (paid money!) it wasn't good enough either.

Tried other versions of whatever distro that magazines put out, from time to time, always improving, but still not useful for me.

Then I eventually retired from windows business, dumped MS everything & went to Debian, kept hearing this funny name Ubuntu, found the forum website & converted to Ubuntu, after which I turned into a distro hopper that eventually found his home in Arch. :lolflag:

[Klaz168]

My first experience with Linux was in 2001 I think, when I had to setup an IRC bouncer on a shell that one of my friends gave me :D Few days later I was installing MEPIS!

Thats when I got in love with Linux, I just became more curious to know about it, and here I'm today.. a Happy Linux User:)

SHINE ON LINUX!