Whats your first linux distro?

[harrisonk]

Hello

This discussion is to find those early users of Linux and see how it has changed from when it was first released.

For those new to Linux feel free to post how you heard about Linux and how/where you got the install CD.

To share my story, I found out about Ubuntu 8.10 from my Cousin and installed it right after he and I recovered my Master Boot Record (MBR). Before that I couldn't boot into XP (which was my OS at the time) because of that problem.

Harrisonk

[bxcrx]

It was probably Mandrake, now Mandria v 7.0

A buddy of mine had a 7 or so CD set.

Mandrake was a lot like Ubuntu IMO, but then fell of after version 9.0. In between then (about 10 years ago) and now I've tried Linux on and off.

I got back into Linux offically after trying Ubuntu v 7.04

The Linux Desktop has grown by leaps and bounds in the past 10 years.

[Eagles18]

It was Ubuntu 8.10 and I didn't really like it because it was difficult to acquire the drivers for anything.

[Psumi]

Knoppix / mepis.

[cariboo]

RedHat 5.2 I still have the cd and book, I haven't tried to install it on a newer system, but I may try it in a vm to see if it still works.

[chris200x9]

xubuntu 6.06 or 7.04 I don't remember

[lisati]

Ubuntu Feisty (7.04), and after a bit of head scratching, finally installed on my previous laptop using the alternate CD. There were a couple of issues, which were easily fixed by applying all available updates and applying a tweak to grub's menu.lst.
Intrepid and Jaunty worked pretty much out of the box for me. but it looks like Karmic might need some tweaks on my current gear.

[khelben1979]

Debian Slink (released in march of 1999) was the first one I installed myself on my Amiga 4000, 10 years ago. Went over to using Potato when I upgraded to PPC hardware.

[harrisonk]

Debian Slink (released in march of 1999) was the first one I installed myself on my Amiga 4000, 10 years ago. Went over to using Potato when I upgraded to PPC hardware.
From what I see you are a early Linux user.

[dirtylobster]

Red Hat 5.2 I think. Didn't get anything to work on it though. :)

[cascade9]

I was given a Debian Sarge install DVD by a friend. Who, IIRC, said "if you can install this I'll be very suprised" (the poor old MCSE couldnt figure it out LOL)

I may have used a knoppix live CD before that, I cant remember.

[KiwiNZ]

Redhat 4

[-grubby]

Damn Small Linux 3.4, though the first distro I actually installed was Ubuntu 7.04.

[squilookle]

SuSE 9.1 - I was using Windows ME at the time and was sick of it. I heard of Linux and wanted to try, but did not have broadband, so I bought a box set for £30, if I remember rightly.

I ran that for a couple of years and was very happy with it.

[blueshiftoverwatch]

Fedora Core 2, but that was mainly just playing around.I never really got into Linux until Ubuntu 9.04 came out.

[qamelian]

SuSE 5.2 around 1998.

[phrostbyte]

Red Hat from 1998.

[jacobs444]

Redhat 7

[Nburnes]

Ubuntu 8.04

[Confuzius]

Somewhere around Mandrake 9/Redhat 8
My crowning achievement was turning the red hat in the menu to a blue hat.
Never got internet working in Mandrake.

I then gave up on Linux for years until seeing a beryl video and convincing myself to learn linux and not give up and I've been using Ubuntu as my main OS since 7.04 release.

[V for Vincent]

knoppix live cd, then ubuntu 7.04.

[adeypoop]

i started using Slackware at work as a web server which was my first experience of linux that machine had no desktop environment, just a terminal. i then made a dev machine running slackware with KDE and was very impressed with the desktip environment at the time (around 1998) first one i installed at home was Mandrake I think.

[ZankerH]

Knoppix, a friend burned me a liveCD to try out when I told him my HD died and I couldn't use my PC. I spent around 4 months without the HD, so I had plenty of chance to get familiar with GNU/Linux, so when I got a new HD I decided to just install Debian instead of stacking the windows 95 floppies all over again. After that, I've used Debian more or less exclusively (Occasionally trying out a new release of Fedora and Mandrake) until the first version of Ubuntu. Since then, I've also began using Fedora and Arch more regularly, once I found a purpose for them.

[MiCK.ca]

I started with Mandrake 8 in 1999. I actually remember buying Mandrake in the box with manuals and everything. 8 discs! Went to work the next day and showed it off to all my IT buddies in the military. "look an os that still gives you manuals!"... I tinkered with Linux in the military first in 1997.

[chousho]

Somewhere around Mandrake 9/Redhat 8

No way! My very first distro was Mandrake 9 that I bought off eBay (not knowing a thing about GNU or F/OSS) for around $6. I then bought Redhat 8 or so from another auction and played around with both on my old Gateway desktop until college.

Anyway, I pretty much left Linux alone until I got curious again, repartitioned my laptop and smacked Fedora Core 4 on that baby. Ever since then I've always been using Linux as my OS of choice. Currently spend most of my time in 9.10 but also have a partition set aside for Arch (along with Windows, but that's mainly for gaming).

funny how Confuzius mentioned the very 2 I started playing with.

[norm7446]

If it were not for Ubuntu I think I would at the min be trawling the Madriva Forum's. But It was Mandrake that got me started. I even went to the extra expense to get a full hardware modem so that I could connect to the net with it as there were no drivers for Win Modems back then.

[redrac]

Slackware 3.2 had installed maybe 2 weeks before formatting and putting win95 back on. Ran Mandrake 7 for a while. Have Xubuntu 8.04 on old p3 box. Ubuntu 9.10 on my desktop and laptop. Got my mom converted, she come and plays on my old p3 box and wants it on her computer at her house. Since all she does is solitare type games and internet would be perfect. And I wouldnt have to go clean off her spyware crap all the time.

[dragos240]

Hardy.

[SunnyRabbiera]

First distro I installed: Yoper
First linux I had good luck with: Mepis

[Retrograde77]

Think mine was a really early version of redhat, and suse linux 5 / 6.

[Redundant Username]

Ubuntu 8.04? Or maybe 8.10?

[Irihapeti]

Ubuntu Feisty (7.04) The only thing that didn't get recognised out of the box was my internal modem, and I found a driver for that elsewhere.

[Bölvaður]

Damn Small Linux 3.4, though the first distro I actually installed was Ubuntu 7.04.

same... but instread of dsl it was knopix 3.9

[Exodist]

First Real Distro - Slackware 7.0 (1998)

[lightningfox]

Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake.

[Arthur_D]

Mandrake, around version 8. Don't remember if it was 7, 8 or 9, but it was before the namechange to Mandriva at least.

[beercz]

debian potato circa 2002

[Cathhsmom]

Mine was Linspire.

[SR_ELPIRATA]

Well, I dont remember the year but I bought the Mandrake 7.0 CD's and tried them for awhile then, but configuring hardware was a lot harder back then and many stuff didnt work. Got Mandrake 8.0 but didnt managed to try it.

Then a long time passed by and went to find the newest Mandrake version only to find that it was named Mandriva. I think this was in 2006. I remember a friend of mine told me about Ubuntu but didnt try it for real untill after I had tried OpenSuse 10.2. For the first time saw Gnome and got hooked on it, but still felt complicated to setup.

Finally came back to Ubuntu with 7.10 and havent looked back since.

[szymon_g]

RedHat 7.2 :)

[peter d]

6.06 was my first and I've used Ubuntu ever since. I skipped 6.10 and 8.10 but have used all the others.

I've also played around with Knoppix, Mepis Antix, Crunchbang, Xubuntu (8.04).

I use Debian 5 on my laptop.

[scorp123]

1996 ... S.u.S.E. Linux

Switched to it because Windows 95 sucked. I hear ******* still sucks despite Microsoft repeating their promises every year?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk4FIIkKXdw

):P

That line sounds soooooooo familiar: "Windows 95 -- the best Windows yet! Not based on MS-DOS and without all the problems of Windows 3.11 .... "

Yeah, riiiiiight. They seriously advertised it like that. The truth is that Windows 95 was based on MS-DOS. It's just that they started to hide it. But it was still a wannabe 32-bit GUI with too much 16-bit legacy crap on top of a 8-bit OS, whereas with Linux I could have a 32-bit OS from bottom to top. Windows 95 crashed. A lot. You cannot imagine how many times daily. Linux on the other hand would simply run and run and run ... for days. For weeks even. No crash. Ever.

The choice was obvious back then, despite the insane learning curve that one had to go through back then. It paid off. 1998 I got my first IT job. And my employer used S.u.S.E. Linux ...

I've been Unix/Linux admin and Linux user ever since :)

[Chargaff]

Red Hat 6.2. Seems like ages ago. My brother installed it on my first computer since I quickly found out, after 2 months of Windows, that this proprietary OS was one of the stupidest thing I'll ever meet in my life. I was happy to learn, at that time, that there was some alternatives... Never quitted Linux since and never used anything else for my computer's need... Mainly used Red-Hat, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu.

[SmittyJensen]

Mandrake 10.something.

It was a long time ago, I think I was like 12 or 13 or so. I got no GUI at boot so I didn't know what to do and I gave up.

[wilee-nilee]

Dapper straight from FreeGeek.
http://www.freegeek.org/

Started with this then added MS in the last year or so, still prefer Linux though.

[scorp123]

Mandrake 10.something. It was a long time ago 2004 = "long time ago" ? :)

Come on. 2004 ... that was just yesterday. That's not "long time ago". :D

[SmittyJensen]

2004 = "long time ago" ? :)

Come on. 2004 ... that was just yesterday. That's not "long time ago". :D
12 years old to 17 years old is a long time for some.

[oldsoundguy]

Mandrake 4 .. then several versions of Red Hat .. then Fedora core versions (up through 6) .. never could completely get the handle on any of them and their forums were NO help with the "now that is a stupid question" answers.
Then I found Ubuntu 7.04 through a friend. Tried it and all of my hardware worked right out of the box! Told me something about the system.
AND was solid enough to take my Windows computers and put them in the corner and take them OFF LINE.
Then I came to this forum and found that there was actually HELP not ATTITUDE.

Yes, I have tried others, but as of now, I always come back to some Ubuntu based build or another!

[NoaHall]

Arch.

[Zoot7]

openSUSE 10.0 was my first.

It was kind of forced upon me for C programming back when I started my degree. I got to like it quite a lot, and still kept coming back to it from other distros until I found Ubuntu, still use it quite a bit mind you. :)

[Machnikowski]

Red Had 9, I think. I never really got into it until Fedora Core 3 or so, though.

[anticapitalista]

2004/2005 Slax as a live cd
early 2005 MEPIS.

[seeker5528]

Started with Slackware for 2 reasons.

A: At the time Slackware was available as a set of floppies and only having dial-up at the time it was a lot easier to download a bunch of 1.44MB images than it was to download something big.

B: At the time, being available as a set of floppies, the disk images were organized by, 'you need this set for basic command line operation', 'you need this set for basic X Windows environment', 'you need this set for command line games', etc...

Spent 3 weeks just getting familiar with the command line before even attempting to do the X thing.

Later, got myself a RedHat disk, did that for a little bit, got a SuSe disk, did that for a little bit. By the time Corel 1.0 came out I had faster internet so I downloaded that and it lasted for about a week before I started getting updated stuff from the Debian repositories. Been running Debian every since.

My secondary distributions that I have had since then, in addition to Debian have been Lindows/Linspire/Freespire, Klikit, and around the same time as Linspire there was anther Ubuntu based distro I tried that I can't think of off the top of my head, and now Ubuntu proper.

Later, Seeker

[SteveHillier]

Suse 7.0 and later 7.2
The Redhat 9.0 followed closely by Fedora 2.
Then I came acorss Ubuntu.
Tried Breezy Badger but moved on straight away to Dapper. Have installed all releases since but only briefly brushed with Edgy and Intrepid.
Have also used Fedora 7 and 8 for our web servers (principally because the panel control we use does not function well on Ubuntu)

[SteveHillier]

12 years old to 17 years old is a long time for some.

Did you know that when you moved from being one day old to 2 days old you doubled your age. Never again will 1 day be the same proportion of your life.

Thus when you are just 17 then being twelve was a third of your life away. For me 1/3 rd of my life is still greater than SmittyJensen's whole life.

Say Ahhh...
Please!!

[cheme420420]

Fedora Core 1

[arcofire]

I began using the Feisty Fawn in summer 2007. It worked excellently. :popcorn:

I try other distros than Ubuntu occasionally but I always run into problems with them so I just stay with Ubuntu. :popcorn:

[quickdraw]

Redhat 7.1 and some old Mandrake. They both gave me such a headache, that I pretty much gave up on linux until I tried Ubuntu 9.04 about 6 months ago. And now I'm hooked and wanting more.

[Frak]

RedHat 4

[Khakilang]

I am a late adopter in Linux. Got Ubuntu 8.10 that come with a book I bought. Now is 9.10. Trying to catch up.

[gashcr]

Caldera Linux, back in 2001 :P

Sweet times

[jrusso2]

I don't recall if it was slackware 3 or 3.2. It was in 96 so what ever one it was it was a while ago. Of course Linux was much different then. No KDE or GNOME, had xvwm. All the applications had different look and widgets, different themes. Real Player was the only audio, video app and Netscape was the only browser. I do remember getting Microsoft Media player 2 or something for Unix to work on Linux.

USB, DVD and hardware acceleration were all to come many years later.

[JDShu]

2004 = "long time ago" ? :)

Come on. 2004 ... that was just yesterday. That's not "long time ago". :D

I'm guilty of that too :P

Used Knoppix, then Fedora Core 3. I think that was 2004.

[harrisonk]

Bump.

lets get this thread rolling again.

[malspa]

My first look at Linux was with a Knoppix 3.7 live CD, from late 2004.

I played with Knoppix for awhile, then purchased a cheap computer that came "pre-installed" with Linspire 4.5. That was early 2005. I moved on to Linspire 5.0 that same year, and then finally did my first dual-boot, with Linspire 5.0 and Windows XP, late in 2005.

January, 2006, I took a look at Xandros on another "pre-installed" system. Then, same month, I installed Mepis 3.4-2 RC1. Mepis quickly brought an end to my toying with Linspire and Xandros; the two machines that came pre-installed with those two distros happily accepted Mepis installations!

[NightwishFan]

I had used Ubuntu Gutsy right after it was released. I had actually never heard of Linux until then. I switched to OpenSUSE and then Puppy for a while but then I went back to Ubuntu, and have been using since.

[CharlesA]

Pink Tie Linux (and I actually still have the discs. O_o)

[Hman242]

Ubuntu Studio 9.10.

[Lightstar]

RedHat hmmm.. 3 or 4.. wow.. been a long time, over 10 years.
It was on 3.5" floppy disks, I should still have them somewhere, but my PC doesn't have floppy drive anymore.

[rajcan]

My first exposure to linux was (k)ubuntu 8.04. Since then I've tried several other linux distros, and a couple other *nix operating sytems. So far though my 2 favorites are Kubuntu and Backtrack :twisted:

[Cope57]

My first Linux distribution was Knoppix 2.2.

[agnes]

At home: Ubuntu 8.10.

On school, it was a bit earlier, with Fedora (probably 8 ) with KDE 3.5.

Which disappointed me actually, I didn't like KDE 3.5.
Also because the staff configured it bad, e.g. clicking on a .doc file would not open OpenOffice Writer by default, even clicking on a .txt file caused a prompting dialog.

[user1397]

Slackware 1.00 released in 1993




























Okay, just kidding :) Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy Badger was the first linux system I saw, and the first I installed.

[V for Vincent]

Strictly speaking? A knoppix live CD, just for one day or something to fix a fatal issue with my win2k installation. Then, about a year and a half later, Ubuntu 7.04.

[Daisuke_Aramaki]

Slackware.

[robertneville777]

Yellow Dog Linux for the PS3. Thank the Lord I found Ubuntu....Linux for me would have stopped there....

[node8472]

Ubuntu 7.04

[coutts99]

RedHat 4.0 (Colgate), late 1996

[darthchaosofrspw]

The first distro I ever acquired was Redhat 6.1. The first distro I ever used was Linspire 4.5. The first distro I used continuously was Xandros 3.0. I hated Xandros 4.0 so much that I switched to Ubuntu starting with 6.06. Been an Ubuntuphile ever since.

[NormanFLinux]

Lindows - now defunct. In its day, it brought out a new feature, a software store with software, free and paid that is only now being copied by Ubuntu. With its click and run feature, it made software installation as easy as clicking a button. Later, I tried Xandros, SUSE and then took on PCLOS, which remains my favorite distro for hardware support and ease of use.

[powerpleb]

Freespire. I used it for about a day before realising that Ubuntu was where it was at.

[NCLI]

Some version of OpenSUSE. Only used it for a short while before switching to, and sticking with, Ubuntu 6.06.

[MooPi]

Turbo Linux, Don't ask me why I chose this particular distro because I can't remember. It didn't go well as I remember. I saved the box and CD set that came with it for many years and finally tossed it to the trash last year. I seem to remember it having a partition editor that I wanted, so maybe that's why .

[kagashe]

I bought HP/COMPAQ Laptop and it arrived with Mandrake Linux 9.1 CDs with HP Logo with multimedia codecs. It made learning Linux very easy. I came to know about Ubuntu on some Linux Forum and started using it since Ubuntu 5.04.

kagashe



Hello

This discussion is to find those early users of Linux and see how it has changed from when it was first released.

For those new to Linux feel free to post how you heard about Linux and how/where you got the install CD.

To share my story, I found out about Ubuntu 8.10 from my Cousin and installed it right after he and I recovered my Master Boot Record (MBR). Before that I couldn't boot into XP (which was my OS at the time) because of that problem.

Harrisonk

[Frogs Hair]

Karmic Koala , because Wubi made it easy to try, and Ubuntu was the most visible distro on the web.

[Fifthmarch]

Red Hat - I don't remember the version. It was available at our College, and all I used it for was to run Mathematica.

[keithpeter]

Sun Java Desktop, which I actually paid money for, although not much. Five CDs in a folder with a paper installation manual. The first version was around 2002 ish. I read about it in a computer magazine (remember those?)

http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/J2SE/Desktop/jds2.html

It worked fine on my 500MHz Celeron box with 384Mb of ram. I could never get the modem working though, so I went back to Windows 95...

My first real Linux for extended use was Ubuntu 5.04, which I ran from the live disc on the iBook and loaded onto an old Dell laptop

http://bodmas.org/blog/ubuntu/ubuntu-linux/index.html

I heard about Ubuntu on the Web somewhere - I think it may have been The Register. I wanted something secure and legal to put on the Dell laptop.

[MadCookie]

Ubuntu 7.10

[auroraa9420]

Fedora 9

it was somewere abour 2 years ago when i was in russia and my cousing shoed me linux and i was blewnd

and after that i user linux about for a month and because of school i stoped using it

after about 2 year later i saw that Windows 7 was a toy operative system but i was in love in vista and my computer was realy slow :S

so i was looking witch one i was the coolest and then i took Debian...but debian was too uncool and i forgot a lot of commands and then i whanted to take a newb OS...so i took Ubuntu....and iv been using ubuntu for 4-5 months now and im more then a pro :D

[tgm4883]

slackware 3.something

[_h_]

Started with Linux Mint for like a week, then moved onto Ubuntu and stayed with Ubuntu. :D

[linux18]

the first distro that I used was damnsmalllinux 4.1 in 2006 after reading an article in popular science, but I couldn't get used to it and went back to msdos 6.22. When my uncle's computer crashed I put puppy linux on it. Then after puppy had some issues on another laptop that crashed, I searched for a linux that "has awesome hardware support" ... Ubuntu 8.10 I still have that disk somewhere, but ever since then ubuntu has been my main OS. Since I got my new laptop i've tried: slitaz, puppy 4.31, puppy 5, yopper, arch, peppermint, tiny core, maybe some more idk. Linux Forever!!

[Rubi1200]

First distro was Knoppix back in 2006; I have played around with just about everything since then before finally settling on Ubuntu as my stable working environment.

[cllewis91592]

ubuntu 9.04 was my first and loved Linux ever since.

thank you Linus Torvalds for making something to over through the corporate big wigs of the computer world. :D

[munkyeetr]

Red Hat 9 (in 2004)...though I didn't have much fun with it.

[CoffeeCoder]

I first heard of Linux somewhere around 2006 I think, but wasn't able to try it out until Ubuntu 9.10's Live CD. I loved it, installed it on its own partition, and then just this last Monday I completely got rid of Windows and don't miss it all.


So my first distro was Ubuntu 9.10, and I've since upgraded to 10.04. It's awesome. :D

[chiliman]

I first tried Open Suse 11.1 (i belevie it was .1), about 9 months ago. I liked it but i just didnt really understand linux at that point so i gave up too quick.

[Twitch6000]

PClinuxOS when it just turned to 2007.

[Twitch6000]

ubuntu 9.04 was my first and loved Linux ever since.

thank you Linus Torvalds for making something to over through the corporate big wigs of the computer world. :D

Uhmm linus did not make it to over throw anyone. It was first made to be a copy of minix.

Its users like you who claim linux is meant to overthrow others :rolleyes: .

Linus just uses linux for what it is ,nothing more or less.

[jeffathehutt]

My first was Redhat 5.2, back in 1998 I think. I have used Linux exclusively since 2000 and have virtually no experience with any Windows version since Windows 98.;)

[anieruddha]

I first install Mandrake 8. It had come with some magazine, I heard about linux, open source, was new in software, wanna try-out linux. I really mess up installation, I had Win 2000 Prof insall on it with just 2 partition, not able to successfully installed, I had to install windows again. Then I used Redhat 9 with dual boot quite while.
I do keep that cd with me.

[lordyosch]

Ubuntu 8.04. As a second to WXP.

Now its all I have (10.04)

[occams_beard]

Mine was RedHat 6.0 back in 1999 or 2000. It came with the book "RedHat Linux Unleashed." Then I moved to Mandrake 7.x for a while, which got me totally hooked. Mandrake rocked in the olden days.

Back then I only had dial up, so I got my CDs either with Maximum Linux magazine (Anyone remember that?) or CheapBytes.com, which sold virtually every distro in existence for a couple bucks.

I actually even bought a version of Mandrake at wal-mart! Yes, they actually sold Mandrake at wal-mart back in the day.

Sadly, however, Mandrake eventually started to majorly suck, so I moved to Fedora Core for a couple years, and now finally Ubuntu.

It truly is amazing how much things have improved since 10 years ago.

[linux18]

My first was Redhat 5.2, back in 1998 I think. I have used Linux exclusively since 2000 and have virtually no experience with any Windows version since Windows 98.;)
don't worry, windows hasn't changed much, it just has font anti-aliasing and new wallpapers

[TheNerdAL]

Mine was Ubuntu 9.04, I think last year.

Now it's Ubuntu 10.04 a year and two versions later. :P

[GlazedDonut]

The first one I used was Fedora Core 3, in February of 2005. I stuck with fedora till October 2008 when i switched to openSUSE 11.0, then finally in December of 2009 I started using Arch Linux, where I am now :D

[rjbl]

Redhat 5.2 in about '97 or '98. Installed it on an old and failing 486. Very impressed by Linux power and stability and its high speed on old kit. Moved up through the RH series as far as RH8 but my main use was RH7 which I used as a platform for various tools to examine network phenomena.

ATB
rjbl

[harrisonk]

Sorry but Bump

[Half-Left]

Redhat 8.

[Chris1274]

Ubuntu 9.04, came pre-installed on my Dell Latitude 2100 (which is why I got it :))

[!nkubus]

It was redhat 5.2 but didn't used it long because of a 640*480 resolution.

My 1st real attemp at linux was with Lycoris.

Folowed By Libranet then Mandrake 8.0, 9.0, 10.0
After this I was a Mepis user for a while and then switched to ubuntu. The funny part is that I Upgraded from Mepis to ubuntu using apt and it worked great.

I also tried a lot a small distributions (Munjoy, Yopper, Zendwalk).

[Banned.]

BackTrack 4

[KatsumeBlisk]

My first was Ubuntu 10.04 back when it was released. I had an interest in it before, but I wanted to wait until the newest was released. I dabbled with it, but it was about the end of May when I installed it to a partition and started using it full time. It is still my main OS, but for an old laptop, I use Puppy Linux - another OS I really like.

[Jesus_Valdez]

Corel Linux.

It was awesome.

[devondashla]

Ubuntu Jaunty. I just remember I loved Compiz fire and Slickness Black.

Now I can't stand either of them.

[dobbod]

My fist Linux Distro used was Ubuntu. Now, I'm using Mint.

[Dragynn]

Ubuntu, tried just the live-disk of Karmic, liked it enough to note there would be an LTS version coming out next, so waited for 10.04. Ran great for a short while and I was digging it until it broke....

Now running Zen-mini Pclinuxos, Puppy, and Slitaz depending on the machine, happy happy camper.

[Dragynn]

don't worry, windows hasn't changed much, it just has font anti-aliasing and new wallpapers

:lolflag::lolflag:

Yep, that and about 15 gigs of bloat.

[spcwingo]

Mine was Puppy Linux 2.17...because of that I still keep around an old machine just for Puppy. :)

[Daisuke_Aramaki]

Slack. Ages ago.

[23dornot23d]

Mandrake 7.1 .... came on 3.5" floppies .....

[chessnerd]

Xubuntu 8.04

Ubuntu 8.04 wouldn't load on my dad's old computer (which he gave to my sister after getting a new one, who gave it to me).

Great OS. It was fast, easy to use, and far more interesting (compared to Windows), although I don't care as much for the more recent versions (same goes for regular Ubuntu, but there isn't anything better...).

[armageddon08]

Fedora 7. Immediately fell in love with Linux.

[Spice Weasel]

SUSE, then Ubuntu, then Debian, then Fedora and CentOS.

[linux-hack]

ubuntu 6.06

[lobralleo]

Mandriva 8 on my desktop PC and Red Hat 5.2 on an old laptop from the late Nineties :)

[mavrrr]

Knoppix / mepis.

[ronnielsen1]

Mepis 3.31

[amitabhishek]

The year was 1999 or so and the distro was Mandrake.

[Khakilang]

Ubuntu 8.10 in April 2009. Than realize 9.04 was just release and switch it a month later.

[Matti L]

I already knew about Linux in the late 90s but started using it only about four years ago when I had a crappy old laptop with windows xp and it was really slow. Tried Fedora Core 4 or something first but had problems with it so tried Ubuntu 6.06 and been using it since then.

[BrokenKingpin]

The first version I tried was an early version of Mandrake, which I could not get installed. The first distro I successfully installed was Red Hat 9, which I used for about 9 months before moving on.

[wkhasintha]

My First was EdUbuntu 8.x .

I gave it up after few weeks.

[DWsystem]

Slackware 4.0

[Sslaxx]

FT-Linux, given away on a cover disc with Personal Computer World. Used it on my 486, where it'd (just) fit into a 50MB partition. It was an interesting experience. Played around with it (and Red Hat 4.2) for a bit, but nothing ever more than that.

First distro I actually used for more than idle curiosity was Red Hat 5.2.

[SeijiSensei]

I started in 1994 using Slackware, version 0.99 if I recall correctly. Came on about 739 diskettes. The kernel was 1.1.59. As you may know the versions with an odd second digit are developmental, but Linux 1.0.x was just too limited to use in commercial applications. In those days people like Alan Cox routinely appeared on mailing lists like "server-linux." I recall having a discussion with him about whether we should move to kernel 1.1.64 because of its networking improvements. Cox is probably the second "grand old man" of Linux after Linus himself.

Eventually we moved to RedHat 3/4 because rpm packaging was just light-years ahead of what we needed to do with Slackware. I've used every version of RH though 9, then switched to Fedora on the desktop and, first, White Box Enterprise Linux (http://whiteboxlinux.org/), then CentOS on servers after RHEL went commercial.

Nowadays I still use CentOS 5.5 as a server platform, but Ubuntu on clients.

[jrusso2]

Back in the day it was like Slackware 3.

[imol]

I too started with Slackware (from floppies) in about 1995/6.

IMoL

[schtufbox]

Red Hat 5.0 it had FWVM 95 as the default WM if I remember correctly, set up to be like windows 95 :D

[bshosey]

Started with RedHat 4 something. I have tried several distros, too many to list. GNU/Linux was never my main OS until ubuntu 6.10. I decided it was time when I move to GNU/Linux as main OS. I still try several different GNU/Linux distros. I just keep coming back to ubuntu.

[motang]

Mine was Mandrake linux and it was way back in 2000.

[98cwitr]

Fedora Core 5

[drawkcab]

Warty Warthog

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_UqUwVPikChs/SQyF1AFuSxI/AAAAAAAAHec/8LyQr8Mk2h0/s400/warty-warthog.jpg

[zombieChan]

First distro was Fedora Core 5. :)

[ilovelinux33467]

Ubuntu 5.04. Now on openSUSE 11.3

[corrytonapple]

Ubuntu 10.04 when it was just released as stable. :)

[planet81]

Ubuntu 7.10 :) :popcorn: :popcorn:, shipping for free :)

[Austin25]

Ubuntu. A few years back. I switched to Windows, but then back when they came out with Vista.

[karthick87]

Tried Fedora..

[jjakspaw6]

Caldara (I think it wa called) was my first try with Linux in 97 or 98.
Then Suse... Unfortunately I switched back to windows and didn't try Linux again until 2003 that was Redhat..... again not happy with it.. went back to windows.
learned about Ubuntu in 05 from a Work Contact from Durban SA... trid it liked it used it for about 6 months...again the mircosoft beast took hold now Im back to Ubuntu.. All n all, Linux has come a long way since I tried Caldara. I am considering dropping windows altogether for linux
Also used Knoppix, puppy, Debian and Slackware...

[devondashla]

Ubuntu 9.04 on Wubi. Now on 10.10 RC, but I've dabbled a little with Mint and OpenSuSe.

[Spear]

Redhat 4.0 in 1996. It's been a long way since then :)

[andymorton]

I think it was Ubuntu 8.04 (perhaps 8.10, I'm not 100% sure). I've taken a quick look at Mint, Fedora, Open Suse and Crunchbang on occasion but I doubt any of them could replace Ubuntu.

[slooksterpsv]

It was one that came with a PC Magazine back in 1998 or 1999, I keep thinking it was RedHat, I could be wrong. Couldn't get the GUI to work so I went back to Windows 98 SE.

First true Linux I used (installed on my machines) was Warty Warhog 4.10.

[dinamic1]

slackware x.x

[poodoopealeoaph]

Well, I my first distro was Ubuntu 10.04. I just started using ubuntu about 3 or 4 months ago and ever since I started, I have been hooked! Now that I've gotten into it more, I have Ubuntu Studio lucid on my desktop and reg ubuntu lucid on my laptop. Also, I have been experimenting with kubuntu and xubuntu over the past couple of weeks. I have to say that I hate kde because of the simple fact that their layout is terrible and is only efficient at causing headaches. Xubuntu I have strayed from xubuntu quite a bit because I have read reviews that said that just about every program crashes in it... so... I don't know. It seems like xubuntu is the only option for this laptop I am fixing for a local business. So, I guess I will have to tinker with it until it decides to work with all of the software that they need.

[ki4jgt]

SLAX I knew a guy from school charging people 5 bucks to make any CD they wanted. Told em I wanted Linux. Came back with slax and didnt' even know how to install it. Five dollars for a CD that I couldn't use :-)

[CraigPaleo]

Red Hat.. way back when..



__________________
Pinguy OS Forum (http://www.pinguyos.com/forum/)

[desnaike]

dapper drake 6.06 never looked back.

[bodhi.zazen]

Gentoo

[CraigPaleo]

Yellow Dog was my first PPC Distro



__________________
Pinguy OS Forum (http://www.pinguyos.com/forum/)

[nlsthzn]

I downloaded (a then wopping 80MB) distro called Peanut Linux (it is still around, known as aLinux I think) back in 1998(ish)... Had a GUI (think it was Gnome, could be mistaken) and was even able to get it to connect to the web... was awesome!

[kingrobdun]

Knoppix 3.1

I came home from school, the hard drive died. My dad showed me knoppix, and I never looked back.

[chong601]

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, tried when my school promoted this os to all students and encouraged us to use it but i messed it up. Installed with WUBI.

[xjesse]

Fedora Core 1. My experience was frighting. :lolflag:

[dineshs]

redhat9

[danbuter]

My first distro was Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy). It was decent. Feisty was a major improvement. Gutsy didn't work for me, and Hardy was fantastic. I then hopped around to OpenSUSE and Fedora, and tested each Ubuntu release while they were in Beta. I had a lot of issues with Intrepid and Jaunty, but Karmic and Lucid have both been great.

[KatsumeBlisk]

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, tried when my school promoted this os to all students and encouraged us to use it but i messed it up. Installed with WUBI.

I think you have a lucky school. My school does not like anything that isn't MS... We are forced to use Internet Explorer 7/8 (depends on which computers you use). I know it's not the district, but our school's tech office because other schools use Firefox in our district.

The point of all that is that I think our school would rather have no computers than use Linux....

[_outlawed_]

I had started into the world of linux with Linux Mint, and soon learned that Mint was based off Ubuntu so I tried Ubuntu and haven't looked back at Mint or any other distro since. :)

[djyoung4]

Fedora 10 was the first one I used. Then went to Ubuntu 8.10 then to Arch then #! then back to Ubuntu 9.04. Run Ubuntu 9.10 on my laptop and Ubuntu 10.04 on my desktop

[jespdj]

Slackware 1.0. That was in 1994. I still have the box with 4 CDs here.

I installed it back then on my 486DX2 (66 MHz), which had a 100 MB (yes, MB, not GB) harddisk and 4 MB (yes, MB, not GB) memory.

My first Ubuntu version was 6.06.

[kernel_232]

Debian 5.0 its nice, unlike ubuntu itself it porvids the fnaility to work offline with all the available debs onhands, with its 5+1 DVDS
Ofcourse ubuntu s better when we look online

[szymon_g]

Red Hat linux, 7.2
ah, old good days ;p

[shobon]

Ubuntu Intrepid on an old tower I had lying around a couple years ago. I played with it for about half an hour then lost interest. Then last year I got a netbook to play with, so I started using Ubuntu Jaunty on a daily basis.

[TNT1]

CentOS 3.1

[scottuss]

Some ol' Red Hat version, one with a great big thick book full of useful info. Then I believe I grabbed Suse with a big book. A bargain at only £10!

[Sylos]

First intoduction was Mepis 7 I think. I didnt really use it other than from the Live disk. The uni netwrok admins made you remove your antivrus software, install Mcaffee, then submitt to regular probes by them otherwise you port stayed locked - unless you used linux or mac - so I got a magazine with a Mepis disk, unlocked the port and then went straight back to windows.

First proper linux was Ubuntu Gutsy that I installed before I had an internet connection. I spent what seemed like aeons downloading driver packages and source code at work and then taking it home on usb only to find I was missing a dependency and have to wait til tomorrow to get it at work.

Happy days:P

[ubu_lin]

My first linux distro is Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid.. :D
hmm.. I read a review about Windows 7.. and there the reviewer at the end suggested to try Ubuntu, which he believes comparable with win7.. then I thought to give it a try.. and wow, I m loving Ubuntu now.. :D

[gintovan]

My first GNU/Linux distribution was Debian in 2002, which I instantly fell in love with.
Since I have used a million different distro's, but I always come back to the Debian derivatives, which now is Ubuntu of course.

[ajtaylor47]

Hello

This discussion is to find those early users of Linux and see how it has changed from when it was first released.

For those new to Linux feel free to post how you heard about Linux and how/where you got the install CD.

To share my story, I found out about Ubuntu 8.10 from my Cousin and installed it right after he and I recovered my Master Boot Record (MBR). Before that I couldn't boot into XP (which was my OS at the time) because of that problem.

HarrisonkI am not quite sure but the first Linux may have been H J Lu's "Boot-root" or MCC Interim Linux followed by Slackware. My first Ubuntu was Hoary Hedgehog starting in late 2006. Later I had registered for the forums and visited only once. That was so long ago that not remembering my email address, user name or password that was used, I just registered yesterday. I have used Ubuntu off and on since Hoary. Whenever a new release of Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, MEPIS, Slackware or Pardus is available I burn a copy and try them. I probably will always have Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS in one of my desktops. I just retired and one of my distractions will be after years of use visiting the Ubuntu forums and reading the documentation. Which should have been done years ago. I am an engineer and one of my faults has always been reading the directions at the wrong time.

[slackthumbz]

redhat 5.2, around 1998. Stuck it on an old P1 90mHz box with 3 GB of storage and a few a megs of ram. Ah the lulz we had back then :) Haven't owned a windows computer since.

[Bapun007]

Ubuntu 10.04 . Find with a book . Love it and using it .

[lordberic]

Slackware 8 or 9, can't remember which :)

[jon8]

Hello

This discussion is to find those early users of Linux and see how it has changed from when it was first released.

For those new to Linux feel free to post how you heard about Linux and how/where you got the install CD.

To share my story, I found out about Ubuntu 8.10 from my Cousin and installed it right after he and I recovered my Master Boot Record (MBR). Before that I couldn't boot into XP (which was my OS at the time) because of that problem.

Harrisonk

It was a pretty old version of scientific linux but i didn't use it
for more than 3 days. Than i switched to suse and now i am using 10.04 LTS

[grobar87]

red hat 6.2

[mainerror]

SuSE Linux 8.2.

[zer010]

I first seen RedHat( don't know what version) for sale at On^Cue for about $50. The price blew me away because at the time Win ME was around $200. I never got it, but the word Linux stuck with me. Since I never had personal internet access (or a computer), I totally forgot about it until I heard about Ubuntu in MaximumPC. So I set out to get a copy and I got 7.10. Still didn't have a computer to try it. :lolflag: Finally, when I did get a computer, I got 8.04LTS. I liked it well enough, but it was foreign to me. I really decided Linux was for me when 9.04 came out. Just about everything worked flawlessly and I was hooked. Now I am running 10.04LTS exclusively and thinking about setting up XP in VB. Just for the practice of running a virtual machine and for the few rare times I might need Win.

[harrisonk]

A small bump here......

[houseworkshy]

Knoppix which came on the cover of a magazine and it blew me away, had never seen a live cd before and could hardly believe how much was on it. I can't remember the version number but, after it had saved my work from several windows mess ups, I decided to install linux on the other drive to learn about it so it was before Ubuntu 7.04. What really happened was that within a month or two windows messed up again and I just couldn't be bothered with the hassle of fixing it; the Ubuntu side had already become the one I relied on.
Peeked into the world of windows on my own PC again ( still have to use it elsewhere ) when I got a new machine a few years later and got vista with it but not for long.
Still duel boot but both sides are now always linux ( I can go a bit disto mad when I have the time, so much that distrowatch.com may think I'm some sort of robot ). Knoppix definately converted me to linux though I may try freeBSD on the other drive sometime.

[Bandit]

I thought I already posted in this thread before.. lol

In any case I tried a few old old versions of Redhat from time to time around 95 to 98, but I didnt start really using Linux until Slack 7 just came out. Used it quite often until I started using SuSE 7.2 (still have disc), then after got back from the war I went to using SuSE 9.1 and up until Ubuntu 5.04. Pretty much stayed here since then, try a few others here and there and using Fedora 16 right now. But going to use 12.04 very soon since I think the DE blitz has finally settled down here :)

[tmaranets]

My first Linux distro was Ubuntu 11.10. My friend introduced to me to it sometime last year and then I installed on my messed up AlienWare(cause it looked like the best OS I have ever seen). I then installed Ubuntu on my new computer and Virtualbox. I started using other Linux distros like Fedora and Dreamlinux(cause I got so interested in Linux).

[Lightstar]

Red Hat 2.0 I believe.
1995

it was on floppies.

[Artemis3]

Mine was Red Hat 4.1.

[linuxyogi]

Kubuntu 5.10

[Hylas de Niall]

Mandrake 8

[codemaniac]

It was a SUSE 9.1 .

[sffvba[e0rt]

Peanut Linux 1998-1999... not sure what version however...


404

[AlexDudko]

Fedora-6

[schtufbox]

Red Hat Linux 4.2 (Biltmore) & Caldera OpenLinux were the first distributions I ever used.

[Erik1984]

Ubuntu 7.04

[JKyleOKC]

Slackware 2.0, triple-booted with WinNT 4 and Windows 3.1.

Didn't use it much at all, though, and didn't try again until Mandrake 8.1. Used Mandrake 8 as my LAN router for almost 10 years without upgrading. Hardware finally crashed, installed Xubuntu 7.04 on replacement and have stayed with Xubuntu since although I do run Debian in one VM as a potential replacement eventually...

[IWantFroyo]

Ubuntu 10.04.

[neu5eeCh]

Red Hat. Way back in the late 90's. There was a lot of excitement over an upcoming system called Red Hat Package Management. I had to start X at the command line -- mount all drives with the command line and unmount them the same way. KDE was a hodge podge of clunky windows that sort of worked -- and didn't (or it could have been Gnome?). All I remember was that it was unbelievably stable. Rock solid (that's when I was using win95); and all but unusable. I had to go looking for dependencies when installing *anything*, and half the time I couldn't find the right dependencies or didn't know what I was looking for. I had a 28k modem at the time, or maybe 56k. I could never get Linux to say his name. I had to edit the monitor configuration file (can't remember the name of it) and was scared to death I was going to nuke my monitor - there used to be all kinds of histrionic warnings. When I got on the net, I used a text based browser which, at the time, was really all I needed.

With Win2000, I went back to windows. I remember discussions about making Linux easier to use; but the original old school Linux crowd was horrified (and probably still is) that anyone would want to make linux easier to use (read: more like windows). They fought fiercely to keep Linux a purely command line OS. The command line was the future according to those proud warriors. That Ludditism, that peculiar and defensive reverse snobbery, is still alive and well in the Linux community, but fortunately they're the minority now.

I would try it out occasionally during the early oughts, but getting my new wireless modems to work could easily turn into a week's worth of fiddling and fussing. Then came Ubuntu...

[Gwaro]

My laptop actually was shipped with Ubuntu preinstalled.I had read about Linux and wanted to try it out. Got a friend who had Mint 9 and since it read Linux Mint, I opted for it since it was Linux afterall, not knowing it was just another distro as Ubuntu!

[yabbadabbadont]

Slackware '96

It had the shiny new 2.0 kernel. :)

(I've still got the CDs in the original 4-CD case :D)

[thenixedreport]

The first distro that I tried running was Mandrake. I can't remember which release it was, but there was an option to do "Linux on Windows" which basically amounted to nothing more than creating a disk image on a FAT32 partition. I think it was version 7 or something like that. I naturally found out through the Internet and magazines. After reading about the Windows XP product activation none sense, I decided to give a distro a go, much to no avail. Couldn't get X to start.

[Bandit]

Red Hat. Way back in the late 90's. There was a lot of excitement over an upcoming system called Red Hat Package Management. I had to start X at the command line -- mount all drives with the command line and unmount them the same way.................

LOL did much the same on Slackware. I ran WindowMaker with minimal GTK. Only exception was I learned quick to make mount/unmount icons on my dockbar.. :)

Here is some old school flashback for you. Those here that complain about lousy video support never had the fun to program mode lines into their Xserver.conf file just to get the dang thing to show higher then 640x480, or in some cases show at all.. LOL :popcorn:

[Linuxratty]

Ok,I confess...It was Linspire.

[F.G.]

knoppix... then first full install was opensuse and first main, full time os was kubuntu (i think, or it might have been Xubuntu lubuntu ubuntu or mint, i played around a bit).

[Peripheral Visionary]

Linux Mint 9. Pretty cool, tried the Xfce spin, awesome, went to Xubu 10.04 when I "inherited" this computer. If Xubu Precise proves to be too much for this old hardware, I'll try SalineOS just because of the cool things I've read about it. If not, I'll likely just stick to Xubu.

[Penguinnerd]

Xubuntu 6.06, on an old 900 Mhz P3 with only 192 mb ram.

It ran faster than my Dad's P4 with WinXP at the time.

I switched from Xubuntu to Ubuntu for 7.10 when I got my new laptop.
It looks like I'll return to Xubuntu in about a year.

[Primefalcon]

Fedora here, stuck with it for line 2 hours had aa life of hell......
and switched to Ubuntu 7.10 and been happy ever since

[rjbl]

Redhat 4 back in '96. Moved up to Redhat 7 by 2000. Set an RH7 laptop system for my job. Ran with that until 2005 but played with RH8 - Fedora 12 at home until c2010, Installed Ubuntu 10.04LTS and have been a happy bunny ever since. Now using Ubuntu 11.04. Probably the best, most complete personal computing system I've met since '82; as we dreamed of such back in the early eighties.

rjbl

[catlover2]

My first installed distro was Ubuntu 9.10, but a Knoppix LiveUSB (created with a automated Windows installer!) was what really saved the day while installing Ubuntu.

[aykoola]

Ubuntu 10.10 was my linux baptism

[km3952]

My first experience of Linux was ZipSlack8 around about 1998, shortly followed by Redhat 4.2 then Debian 2.1.

That was the start of my distro hopping days, finally returning to Debian several years ago (Sarge 3.1).

I am now getting tired of having to search for & install the necessary firmwares needed these days, so am testing/running Lubuntu 12.04 (beta2) as well as my Debian boxes.

[na5h]

I've been on the Ubuntu-train ever since 9.10 Karmic Koala...so much better than the basic edition of Windows Vista that I was using at the time!

[TeamRocket1233c]

First distro I tested: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala.
First distro I actually installed on my own hardware as a replacement for Windows 98: Crunchbang 10 Statler.

[a2j]

Redhat 7.2 I also learned Redhat in school after that...

first install on P2 server. Was little surprised that there was no gui, because of no video drivers. Also, password did not "show up". I re-installed twice because of that. Still did not fix it. :lolflag:


it was fun...

[szymon_g]

My first distro?
I met linux at my friend's work (he was an admin in internet cafe)- it was ca 2000/2001, it was a PLD (rpm based distro; it was loosely based on Red Hat Linux) with WindowMaker :)
The first distro that came into my computer was Red Hat Linux 7.2 :)

[capricornday]

It was Mandrake and accidentally kill my windows OS :P
but, so happy that my TV tuner detect automatically

[wolfen69]

I don't know how many times I've answered this over the years, but my first was Mepis back in 03.

[sway9]

Ahh first Distro.. Some weird redhat thing swiftly followed by Ubuntu 8.1 I think it was from memory, and there was a Koala one there too spelt Coala (Sorry yankees, get it right lol)

Has anyone checked out red hat lately? Or has it bombed as badly as I hear?

[samuele.mattiuzzo]

it was Slackware back in 1999 but i lasted one year before trying out gentoo, ubuntu and stabilizing with debian for 2 years. then, in 2001, archlinux came out and i switched and never moved back to anything else. except now, i needed ease of use and a quick installation for a job, so i'm here with ubuntu 11.10 :D

[Mathor]

It was Lucid Lynx, and I accidentally corrupted my windows partition (which I bought with the laptop from a friend, without an install cd), so then I got a usb with Lynx and replaced my whole hard drive with that. I haven't used Windows since, and I really do not miss it.

[raja.genupula]

its Ubuntu in my case . i started learning Linux with Ubuntu only .

[WritersTear]

My first exposure to linux distro was with Mandrake Linux (just before it became Mandriva). Had a hard time navigating it though. Was so confusing at that time.

[kdane4]

ubuntu 11.04 installed via wubi

[wolfen69]

it was Slackware back in 1999 but i lasted one year before trying out gentoo, ubuntu and stabilizing with debian for 2 years. then, in 2001, archlinux came out

Ummm, you're implying that ubuntu came out in 2000. Ubuntu started in Oct 2004. And also, Arch came out in march 2002. Yes, I am the Fact Police. Get it right!

[d_e_monat]

Hmmm. I think it was Knoppix. Followed by Debian. Then I discovered Ubuntu Dapper.

Haven't used M$ ******* in 5 years!

[AllRadioisDead]

Ubuntu 8.04.

Those were the days.

[Primefalcon]

My first experience was... Lindows in 2001.... which was a complete fail.... wouldn't even install... Same for fedora around 2007.... then I tried heard about ubuntu 7.10 and it installed fine... so I wiped windows and decided to try Ubuntu for a solid week (sink or swim), it's been my only OS since,

Though I had a hell of a time when Pulseaudio was first introduced.......

[fxStar]

As far as i remember, hmm it was mandrake 8.0 !

[GWBouge]

Red Hat 7, briefly. Very briefly. I think my Win98SE dumped and I was looking for something different, but it was only a couple hours before I wanted to get back to games.

In '07 I was looking for something free to run on an older rig for a file/web server on the local network, stumbled across Ubuntu Server 7.04 and loved it (I spent more time in DOS than Windows back when that was possible). After a move and a new rig I started dual-booting with 7.10, since 8.04 it's been my primary OS.

[thatguruguy]

I tried Mandrake years ago.

I've used Ubuntu as my primary OS since 9.04 came out.

[TheFu]

Let's see ... I still have the CDROM ... Found the original CDROM. The orange cover says:

InfoMagic
UNIX
CD-ROM

July 1993
* 386BSD
* LINUX
* NetBSDI know it didn't boot from CD because that wasn't possible back then. You had to use 2 floppy disks - boot and root to load the OS. I don't think I even owned a CDROM drive when I bought this disk at the local microcenter for $15. Downloading a GIF image could take over an hour, so downloading a distro wasn't possible from home. At work, that was a different story, but I tried to never use lab resources for non-work uses. Our lab was one of the top 10 main nodes on the Internet in the USA, so we had lots and lots of bandwidth compared to almost anyone else. I was an internet noob back then and completely overwhelmed.

Just mounted that CD. Inside the LINUX/Images/ directory are the boot and root files. Those are:
* boot-0.98
* root-0.98
The rest of the disk was a mirror of TSX-11's Linux FTP site.

Soon, I was buying InfoMagic's 6-CD Developers Resource Linux distro CDs. Slackware was the first user-friendly installer that I recall. While I haven't seen it in years, I think it is about the same today as back then. It asked all sorts of questions about which packages you wanted installed. Pages and pages and pages of questions. ;) I recall SLS and Yggdrasil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil_Linux/GNU/X) distros being included on those later CDs.

I can probably find a few of those older CDs, but I did give lots of them away. Gave one to a brother-in-law around Thanksgiving 1997 when he was trying to setup a home network for 4 PCs (wife, 2 teens and himself). He was trying to share a dialup internet connection over MS-DOS parallel port networking. Arg.

He's still running slackware on his servers for home and business needs today. Perhaps I should bring this orange CD to the next LUG meeting for show-n-tell?

[vasilbelarus]

OpenSuse 10.3 was my first linux distro. It has KDE 3,5 (if I clear remember) and was very stable and attractive for me. Then, after KDE 4 was released and wasn`t so stable and featurerich as KDE3,5 I migrate to ubuntu 10.04 with gnome, then after unity I tryed Gnome3 on Fedora, OpenSuse and Debian, KDE on OpenSuse and Kubuntu, XFCE on Xubuntu. Now I use Ubuntu 12.04 and going to install Debian.

[odiseo77]

Mandrake (back in 2004), shortly followed by SuSE. Nowadays I mostly use Debian.

[fontis]

First ever was Slackware 4.
I heard of something called Linux from a friend so I said hmm give me a CD and let me see. He told me it's quite difficult and I had never seen Linux at the time so I figured it must be something that looks like either Windows or Mac. And well. LOL was I surprised.

Anyway I managed to install it and figure out that startx started the GUI. Tried it for a week or so but I couldn't live without my games so I went back to Windows.

[bdfull3r]

My first one was Ubuntu 10.10 but the first i ever saw i Ubuntu 6.10? it was a really early one my cousin's step dad used and we both hated it.

I mostly use debian. The simple ones lol, Mint or Ubuntu, im an not developer or really terminal friendly.

[pissedoffdude]

The first distro I ever used was linspire. I was really young at the time and my brother had installed linspire on an old computer to revive it, and I decided to try it out since I was curious about other operating systems. I HATED it. I couldn't figure out how to install flash player, or even other programs (I forget which, I just remember being so confused)

The first distro I ever installed was ubuntu 6.06 though. One day, I was browsing around a halo2 forum and someone posted a reply saying that if your computer can't run ubuntu, you don't deserve to have a computer. So I went to the ubuntu website, saw that their slogan was "linux for human beings" and it really affected me because of my previous linux experience. I downloaded the 64-bit edition of 6.06, and it worked better than xp x64 because my hardware was supported and I could finally use my scanner (not too many people made 64-bit drivers at the time since vista wasn't even out). Since then, I've been hooked on linux

[3v3rgr33n]

Ubuntu 10.10, Took me forever to figure out how install the 3rd party codecs. *noob

[wheeze]

Man, I feel old. My first distro was Yggdrasil Plug-and-Play Linux, about 1993 or so. I think it had a kernel version around 0.99 or something (seriously!) :lol:

[Mikeb85]

My first distro was SUSE 7. Of course I was young and didn't want to put time into learning it, so my next distro was Ubuntu 11.04. Been with Ubuntu ever since (although I briefly installed openSUSE 12.1).

[Kelvari]

I want to say my first attempt at installing Linux was with an old set of Red Hat 2 floppies back in the mid/late 90s. I didn't know enough about it to even do anything with it, though, so that attempt might not even count.

My next serious attempt came with Fedora Core 3, which I found to be quite unstable.

[Media Boot]

Ubuntu 7.10 (Gusty Gibbon) (http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/7.10/)

[sakamoto]

ubuntu 8.04 hardy :-\"

now still on ubuntu 10.04 and a huge puppy linux fanatic for my netbook

[ranger1021994]

My first was ubuntu 10.04...and it was sooo awesome...

Tweaked it like crazy.. :) :)

[Sandertje]

My first distro was Ubuntu 8.04, after I got fed up with Vista on my laptop. Fell in love with it after I was able to revive my old PC with 8.04 - XP had died on it xD.

[TheFu]

Man, I feel old. My first distro was Yggdrasil Plug-and-Play Linux, about 1993 or so. I think it had a kernel version around 0.99 or something (seriously!) :lol:

I remember seeing Yggdrasil, but never installed it. My first real install that wasn't a WUBI-like install was SLS ... around 1993 too.

That WUBI-like install was a floppy-based distro from Portugal with X/Windows. I dialed into work and started a GUI program over the 14.4K dialup. In the time to took for the complex GUI to display, my box was hacked, userid removed and root password changed. I was on a US government network, but this was before NAT or any real use of firewalls. Never used that ZIP install package again, obviously.

Getting hacked that early in my internet career was eye opening and has changed my life ever since.