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View Full Version : When was the first time you started using Linux?



aysiu
January 17th, 2006, 07:19 AM
Obviously we've all been using Ubuntu only a year and a half or so, but when did you start using Linux for the first time? I'm just curious... as always.

stuporglue
January 17th, 2006, 07:33 AM
This is going to be a fun thread to watch.

I wanted to try Linux out when I was in high school (before 2000), but I didn't really understand that it was an operating system, I thought it was just a cool program which I heard about on TechTV. It didn't help that we had dial-up, and a Mac.

Finally in January 2003, I heard about it again, and found Yellow Dog Linux version 3.1, which I installed on my iBook G3. It was a nerve wracking experience trying to understand the concept of "partitioning" my hard drive, and hopeing nothing would break. :-D

Luckily I survived and dual booted for about a year and a half, and now run Linux full time.

morphodone
January 17th, 2006, 07:34 AM
Well, the first install I did of linux was back in the summer of 2001.

It was Redhat 7.1 (seawolf). My roommate downloaded it at the time
and I was curious. I always have to reference distrowatch for the time
period. :D

I was able to dual boot a windows os, probably windows 2000.

Anyway, I didn't stick with it until a few years later.

Several distributions and installs later, here I am.

Did I mention several distributions?

aysiu
January 17th, 2006, 07:39 AM
I wasn't sure whether to vote 2004 or 2005. I ended up 2004 just to be "honest."

In 2004 I gave Linux a try--Blag specifically, a Red Hat-based distribution. Ultimately, I was intimidated by dependency hell and some really old documentation (several-years-out-of-date library books on Red Hat) about package management. So I gave up after a few days.

It wasn't until April of 2005 that I gave Linux another shot. I played around with various distros (including Ubuntu... which at first intimidated me) before semi-settling on Mepis. I loved Mepis for as long as I could point-and-click.

Then, I moved on to Ubuntu because the Mepis Lovers weren't answering my questions and the Ubuntu Forums were. I've been using Ubuntu continually since May, 2005.

Iandefor
January 17th, 2006, 07:46 AM
Must have been ~January 14th, 2004 that I installed Xandros. I had a computer that needed an operating system and had no money.

briancurtin
January 17th, 2006, 07:48 AM
july 2005 for me, and i just went straight to linux. my laptop ran into some serious problems and i always wanted to try out linux so i went for it. i went and bought the suse 9.3 box set since i couldnt download it. i technically dual booted for like a week, but i never went into windows and the one time i tried it didnt even work so i just dumped it. i havent looked back since. SuSE from july-december, FC4 for a week, and then ubuntu for a little over a month.

drizek
January 17th, 2006, 07:50 AM
i really wish i got an nvidia card instead of an ati one. if i had, i would have been using linux since 2003, but i was not able to get mandrake up and running at the time cause of tha crappy card. a year and a half later i was due for a windows reformat on another pc, and i decided to try out fedora core 1. didnt even install due to another ATI card i had. ended up installing mandrake 10.0, then went to mepis, then yoper for a long time, then kubuntu, then suse, now back to kubuntu, until i find something else.

morphodone
January 17th, 2006, 07:55 AM
I played around with various distros (including Ubuntu... which at first intimidated me) before semi-settling on Mepis. I loved Mepis for as long as I could point-and-click.

Then, I moved on to Ubuntu because the Mepis Lovers weren't answering my questions and the Ubuntu Forums were. I've been using Ubuntu continually since May, 2005.

Me too. I used Mepis for a long time...but the ubuntu forums are much better.
:)

And ubuntu is a pretty slick distro itself. ;)

I still have my wife using Mepis though...she won't let me make any changes to her system. It works and that's all she cares about.

Titus A Duxass
January 17th, 2006, 07:57 AM
1999 I think with an early and terrible Red Hat. Then SuSE 7.3 personal which I still have.

prammy
January 17th, 2006, 08:02 AM
1995 with Slackware

redactech
January 17th, 2006, 08:21 AM
The first time I touch unix was in 1993

THe first time I Install linux one of my computer was in early 2003. I definitively start using linux only in march 2004 and Ubuntu in april 2005

Orunitia
January 17th, 2006, 08:25 AM
My best guess is around 2001/2002 (voted 2002), but I'm not sure. I started using Ubuntu around the end of 2004. I started with Mandrake (hell if I remember which version), and hated/loved it at the same time. I really liked using it, but I hated it at the same time because I couldn't figure anything out. I accidentally formatted windows xp during the install, and I didn't get it back on until a week later. (Stupid restore disc wouldn't restore XP until I formatted the drive to fat32. Took me a while to figure that out.) I think I reinstalled mandrake or red hat a few weeks after that, but this time doing my research beforehand and learning how to partition.

nocturn
January 17th, 2006, 09:41 AM
Autumn of 1997, RedHat 5...
Soon replaced by SuSE (KDE 1).

I removed windows in 1999.

chrome
January 17th, 2006, 09:44 AM
Just installed it on Sunday :smile:

PatrickMay16
January 17th, 2006, 10:04 AM
I first tried Linux in April 2005, with Mandrake Linux. I found it to be pretty bad, but I think this is because I didn't know enough to use it properly. Later, in June, my computer died and I got a new one. This time, I spent several months on the Ubuntu forum before I even installed Ubuntu. I think that prepared me, and just a week or less after installing Ubuntu (in September 2005) I had it working well, and I could do pretty much everything I needed to do with it.

tkjacobsen
January 17th, 2006, 10:09 AM
I started in my summerholliday after highschool in the summer of 2005. I have tryed at least 20 dists, but fint Kubuntu/Ubuntu to be the best

public_void
January 17th, 2006, 10:48 AM
Oct 2005. First Linux distro ever and I think its great. Even though I dual-boot with XP, I'm finding I using Ubuntu more because of less hassle.

Miguel
January 17th, 2006, 11:02 AM
End of July 2004, Mandrake 10.0 community.

Although I had some Unix experience (programming in FORTRAN during University courses, in an alpha!!!), my jump to linux was quite sudden. I definitely wanted to say good riddence to M$, but I couldn't because my father needs the computer at home for serious work (suffice to say this computer will never be connected to the internet). So when I finished my degree in physics, my parents gifted me my laptop, to which I could do whatever I wanted (3 year warranty ;))

So, my first experience with linux was installing it in a widescreen laptop, with an ati card. Is it all? No! Mandrake 10.0 shipped with a buggy alsa driver for my sound card. How buggy? When trying to mount that driver, the system would freeze absolutely... while emmiting a nauseous high pitch tone at maximum volume. And I was in a friend's house installing it (we were both newbies).

You may remember that the Coca-Cola spot of the moment was "Del pita, pita deel". The funny part of this is that, in spanish, "pita" means "beeps", and my laptop is a Dell. So imagine me trying to work the hell out of this tone in an unknown system while two friends of mine were dancing and laughing around me singing "Dell pita, pita Dell".

But I carried on. Call me stubborn. The funniest thing is that on the first months I... recompiled my kernel, fought with my ati drivers (it ain't trivial to get widescreen resolutions, baby), compiled many many programs (urpmi what?)... beautiful experience. That was it with Mandrake. I stopped bearing it on november (there were several things I disliked). After some distrowatching and friend's advice, I finally switched to Ubuntu on November 2004.

Today, I am becoming rusty. Default 686 kernel, apt package management, no beeps at boot, everything more or less works... Anyway, I must admit I haven't kicked winblows. I do some gaming (TESIII: Morrowind (works in cedega, though) and now Tiger Woods 2k6 (I love to beat my dad)) and I still haven't figured out how to do the TV-out with the fglrx driver. But that's all. I feel more comfortable with either my Debian at work or my Ubuntu laptop than I have ever been with windows.

sorry for this utterly long speech. Have a nice day,

Miguel

graabein
January 17th, 2006, 11:11 AM
I first tried (SuSE) Linux back in '99 I think, but I really didn't get into it.

Decided to take another look at GNU/Linux again last year and a friend recommended a few distros among them Ubuntu. I liked the philosophy and the fact that it used GNOME so I gave it a shot and I'm using it about 95% of the time. The rest I (dual) boot XP to play Battlefield 2 and Civ 4. :???:

webra
January 17th, 2006, 12:10 PM
Started out with Red Hat in 1998.
After that I used Mandrake and SUSE until a friend of mine gave me some Ubuntu cd's.
Since that summer day in 2005 Ubuntu is the only way for me.:p

exclipy
January 17th, 2006, 12:26 PM
Are you asking when we first used Linux or when we first used Linux? I first tried it out in 2001 (Redhat 6) but voted on 2003 (Mandrake 9) because that's when I actually started using it for production as my main OS.

Vinci71
January 17th, 2006, 12:38 PM
In autumn 2002 I decided to give Linux a serious try, after my brother already used it for about a year. In the beginning I used Mandrake, then the various evolution till Mandriva LE2005. In autumn 2005 I decided to try Ubuntu, and since then I already migrated all the computers I use at home and at work. Also my brother switched to Ubuntu in the same period.

BSDFreak
January 17th, 2006, 01:15 PM
93 or 94, it was when the first distro was released (Slackware).

Gowator
January 17th, 2006, 01:35 PM
Are you asking when we first used Linux or when we first used Linux? I first tried it out in 2001 (Redhat 6) but voted on 2003 (Mandrake 9) because that's when I actually started using it for production as my main OS.
Yeah good point ...
I just had to google the answer. I remember it was slackware 2.0 for the first Linux I installed. This makes it (according to Wikipedia) between July 94 and November 95 (or possibly a bit later) if I picked up an older book ... however the timeframe is about right because it was definately pre-late 1998...and Win98.

However I installed, I got X working and even xpaint .. and then it say there. No apps .. not much of anything really.

Then after using Solaris at work between 1996 and 1999 I installed Solaris x86 at home... same problem and my graphics card wasn't supported in Xsun so it looked like I had to use XFree to get decent graphics (anything above VGA!) and at this point I just installed RedHat 5.something

This was the first usable distro for me... and soon i had 4-5 RH boxes and a single Win98 one with mty TV card connected to my TV ... (I had an English TV in Norway at the time and used a TV card to go from PAL-BG to PAL-I or whatever weird system Norway uses...

This was fun till one morning I turn on the TV and have "Windows has become unstable" la lal la on my TV... bah... I turned out it was the TV station (Norway has some really weird TV stations like one where they have slot machines and you call in and they spin them ..) and this one ws running Windows ... I found this so funny I decided to get Windows out of my life forever and trashed the Windows install. I guess around 2000 .. and I have been Windows free ever since...

Luffield
January 17th, 2006, 01:54 PM
Are you asking when we first used Linux or when we first used Linux? I first tried it out in 2001 ...
Same here - first time I tired Linux was at the lab where I did my masters degree, in 2001. It was Red Hat with KDE and I didn't like it at all - I thought it was ugly and inconvenient. I switched to Windows and didn't think about Linux again until about a year ago, when someone at the lab next door got a new computer and installed Linux and Gnome on it. For me it was love at first sight, Gnome didn't seem too impressed though :D . I started reading about Linux, then tried a few Live CDs and Ubuntu was the only one that worked on my PC. I read about the distro a bit, liked what I saw, and installed Breezy last October.

aysiu
January 17th, 2006, 03:10 PM
Are you asking when we first used Linux or when we first used Linux? I'm not even sure myself.

picpak
January 17th, 2006, 03:20 PM
I tried out Knoppix in 2004, just to see how it worked. Then I tried Topoligilinux so I could install it with Windows - very un-n00b friendly...

Then in March last year, I made the full switch to Suse (Well, I was hoping it'd automatically partition my drive, it obviously didn't). Now here I am with Ubuntu, ever since April. :)

earobinson
January 17th, 2006, 04:10 PM
best poll in a while, aysiu makes all the good ones!

2003!

earobinson
January 17th, 2006, 04:14 PM
EDIT double post :(

Vlammetje
January 17th, 2006, 04:32 PM
October 2005, in a matter of weeks or perhaps even days I've looked at Ubuntu, Mepis, Knoppix and again Ubuntu. No regrets.

PuNGS
January 17th, 2006, 05:12 PM
I just started using Linux a week or two ago. I feel that I will use it the rest of my life. :smile:

Seaman
January 17th, 2006, 05:17 PM
Well, the first time I used Linux on one of my computers were sometime during 2005. I got a server and needed a small text-based OS so I installed Debian, however, I had to throw the computer away because of lack of space (physical). Tough, I voted '2006' since I never really used it back then, actually I'm not using Linux now either because I still not have a computer of my own. However, I will buy one within a couple of weeks and hopefully I'll be able to run Ubuntu smooth and fine :rolleyes:

valkyrie
January 17th, 2006, 08:56 PM
My week looked something like this:

Day 1: Committed myself to installing a Linux distro. (Chose kubuntu!)
Day 2: Installed kubuntu. Network didn't work. :(
Installed kubuntu again. Network didn't work in a different way. Read a lot of online help guides. :-k
Day 3: Installed kubuntu again. Read a lot of online help guides. Realized wireless card was one of the most problematic to work with Linux and ndiswrapper. #-o
Read a lot more online help guides. Messed something fundamental up with ndiswrapper. Installed kubuntu again. :?
Followed the simplest looking help guide step-by-step. :-k
Network card worked! :mrgreen:


And the neat part is, I've never had so much fun fixing my computer. The moment when the little blinky green lights finally came on was totally awesome. Sure it took three days, but it was totally worth it -- I DID THIS ALL BY MYSELF!* Thanks, open-source :D I'm never going back.

* OK, the online help guides deserve some credit too!

bonzodog
January 17th, 2006, 11:59 PM
heh...damn, i'm going to show my age...I first encountered linux in 1996 as SLES on an internet cafe server, which was switched to BSD. Suffice to say, my interest was piqued. So, in 1997, I tried caldera linux, then switched to slackware, and had it as a sole OS since 2001, but have switched to ubuntu for 64 bit, and the fact that i like gnome, which Slackware has dumped as a desktop environment.

psbsyz
January 18th, 2006, 12:07 AM
First let me start out by saying "HI" to the community,that's right, I'm a newbie and excited to be here!!! I finally had success in installing UBUNTU today after countless tries of previous distrubitions over a three year span and can't believe it. I finish the install only minutes before I had to leave for work which is where I'm at now and can't wait until I get home, I can't believe at 45 I'm feeling like this, I'm like a kid at Christmas,wish me luck because I have alot of catching up to do. :D :D

Gowator
January 19th, 2006, 09:57 AM
My week looked something like this:

And the neat part is, I've never had so much fun fixing my computer. The moment when the little blinky green lights finally came on was totally awesome. Sure it took three days, but it was totally worth it -- I DID THIS ALL BY MYSELF!* Thanks, open-source :D I'm never going back.


:D




First let me start out by saying "HI" to the community,that's right, I'm a newbie and excited to be here!!! I finally had success in installing UBUNTU today after countless tries of previous distrubitions over a three year span and can't believe it. I finish the install only minutes before I had to leave for work which is where I'm at now and can't wait until I get home, I can't believe at 45 I'm feeling like this, I'm like a kid at Christmas,wish me luck because I have alot of catching up to do.

Yep its strange that I get far more satisfaction finally configuring something in Linux than Windows because Linux puts you back in charge and makes me feel like I learned something useful.

AndyCooll
January 19th, 2006, 02:10 PM
Made the change last year (2005) after using various versions of Windows for years (bith legal and hookie). By chance I came across open-source via Firefox and Open Office for Windows. The whole philosophy struck a chord with me. Well... the next step was to try a whole operating system. Tried a few distros and have settled Ubuntu because of that well known "it just works" phrase.

:cool:

lgmdaniel
January 19th, 2006, 02:32 PM
Does loging on a using a HMC for IBM's regatta's count?

h3xx3r
January 19th, 2006, 03:39 PM
too long :)
but had a lot of fun along the way
I think RedHat"Mustang" was the first I played with. It was an experience back then.

ember
January 19th, 2006, 04:56 PM
Hmm ... I do not remember the actual date, yet it was with SuSE 5.1, so I guess, it must have been around 1998. I do remember that I was incredibly happy when I succeeded in setting up my soundcard back then, though.

Wolki
January 19th, 2006, 05:10 PM
Voted 2003. I actually played with linux a little in ~1999/2000, trying to install suse after getting a new pc on which os/2 wouldn't run anymore, but was to scared to configure X ("Warning: If you enter the wrong values here, YOUR MONITOR WILL EXPLOOOOOODE MUAHAHAHAHA", though my memory might betray me here ;)) And CLI only wasn't really an option then.

2003 came Mandrake, and after some growing pains I didn't look back.

Virogenesis
January 19th, 2006, 05:34 PM
2000 or 2001 one of the two.
I believe my first distro was Storm Linux it was on the front cover of linux format (uk linux magazine) it was debian based I hated it as I was new to linux and i had the pleasure of trying to get a winmodem working and back then everything was rpm and I wasn't use to alien at that time.
I then brought another copy of linux format which had suse 7 on it I installed it and loved it to bits as it was much easier to use out of the box.
Tried mandrake got my winmodem working but I ran it with root and within 15 mins my box was cracked and defaced good learning curve.
My friend brought a server last year and I tried to convince him to install linux and anyway I looked around and found whitebox based on redhat enterprise and thats when it happened I just decided linux was better for me and somehow I found out about ubuntu.
I first tried ubuntu hated it because i was use to kde so I then tried kubuntu after trying it i found gnome was more suited and because of ubuntu i'm now a gnome guy

23meg
January 19th, 2006, 05:43 PM
At the end of 1997, with an account on someone else's computer running Slack. My first own installation was with Red Hat 6.2 in 2000.

fog
January 19th, 2006, 05:45 PM
Red Hat 7, October 2000

Mr_J_
January 19th, 2006, 07:21 PM
I'm not to sure about 2001 being the date, but I believe I started trying out with mandrake 7.1 .

I started using mandrake with windows as dual boot, but I never stopped too long around linux.

One time I just installed mandrake but not windows. This was after I screwed up my windows for the *nth time.
Got sick of windows and tried mandrake for a couple of months. Only using mandrake during that time made me learn threw and dispel loads of my annoiances and fears about linux.

Unfortunatly I never got around dispelling my gaming woes and I just had to change to windows again.

In October 2005 i changed to Ubuntu Only.
I'm trying Slackware at the moment, and windows is coming around again for work related issues.

Oh well...

matthew
January 19th, 2006, 09:11 PM
I first used Unix in college in 1987.

My ISP also used it for my first dial-up internet/email access in the early 1990's--back when you had text-only and the idea of the world wide web was in its infancy. I used pine for email, pico for editing, gopher for trying to find info, stuff like that.

Then I took a long break for lots of reasons.

I first used Linux in February of 2005 with Knoppix. I tried 7 or 8 distros and just wasn't sure. I installed Ubuntu as a dual boot in April 2005, the same time as I joined these forums. The dual boot ended a few months later and I'm 100% Ubuntu now and for the forseeable future.

gamerchick02
January 20th, 2006, 02:18 AM
The first time I ever used a *nix system was sometime in 2000 when I used IDeas on the Unix machines at school... Was a Windows user till about 2004-ish when I got an early copy of Ubuntu on my (new) computer. Didn't use it much because of some issues (one being lack of internet, one being intimidation), but this past year (summer/fall 2005[can't remember]) I got the *new* and updated Ubuntu (Breezy). Got a external modem working with it, all of my hardware was detected (cept the modem) and it JustWorked(TM). I use it all the time now for IM, chat, and internet. I really like the system. I only boot into Windows to play my games and to do some maintainence on that system.

Amy

beercz
January 20th, 2006, 02:56 AM
Summer of 2002, Debian potato then almost immediately woody. Servers now using Sarge - desktops/laptops now ubuntu.

Played around with other distros but always preferred debian based distributions.

hen3rz
January 20th, 2006, 03:35 AM
January 5th 2006. Was looking for a change from the usual and installed Suse 10.0, didnt like it and found Ubuntu. I'm now 100% Ubuntu.

jag164
January 20th, 2006, 04:16 AM
1994 with Slackware. About 70 3.5 inch floppies for a "full" install. I think it was kernel 1.1 (beta 1.2) on a 386-25MHz. Moved on to RedHat through the late 90's til present (RHEL/Fedora). First Ubuntu install was last weekend. Put it on my laptop and I'll say that it's a pretty slick distro. I have few minor "blah"s and one major gripe...."Why the Heck Did They Bastardize The SysV Runlevel Control Init Scripts and inittab. A default runlevel of 2 with X and everything enanbled?!? Kinda defeats the whole purpose. But I'll stop now. Cheers.

jeff--
January 20th, 2006, 04:22 AM
I just got into Ubuntu late last year when a friend got me on it.

Vlammetje
January 20th, 2006, 10:06 AM
I notice the largest group voted last year (2005)

I wonder for how many of us their first ever Linux is Ubuntu?
I know it is for me.