What was your first linux distro?

[Legendary_Bibo]

Mine was Yellow Dog Linux 6.2 on my PS3 and it almost turned me away from linux. You couldn't really do anything on it, and it more complicated to use than Ubuntu. Also setting up wireless internet was the biggest pain.

[markbahnman]

I tried installing Slackware back in 2000 or so on an old computer with floppy discs and had a horrible time with it. It's a shame but I didn't try Linux again until about two months ago when I dual booted Ubuntu on my computer instead paying to upgrade to Windows 7 and haven't looked back since. Now I have 10.04 running on my desktop, 9.10 on my Macbook Pro, and server edition running on a remote server.

[EarlGrey167]

One of the Puppy distros. Not for a newb to be sure! I suffered through though! Now I'm running Xubuntu!

[germanix]

Ubuntu 8.04. Ubuntu 9.10 would not run on my Laptop so I changed to Mint which ran fine. Now I have 10.04 running trouble free.

[kaldor]

Ubuntu was my first, and as such it still holds a special place in my heart (aww ;) )

I moved on to more stuff now. openSUSE, Wolvix, OpenSolaris (ffs oracle, hurry up!) and other distros. I knew one guy who said he started when he bought a boxed copy of Yggdrasil though.

[Frogs Hair]

9.10

[chessnerd]

Xubuntu 8.04 on an old Dell Optiplex GX240. At first install the specs were: 1.7 GHz Pentium 4, 256 MB RAM, 20 GB HDD, and 128 MB GeForce card.

[OrbJinzo]

Red hat 6.2 on an old p2 233mhz

[Legendary_Bibo]

I have noticed that no one runs YDL on their PC though. I wish I knew about the other distros made for the PS3 before I accepted that stupid update that disabled linux for my PS3.

[dougalkerr]

Oh my God am I the oldest here?
I tried Mandrake way back in the early nineties.
It was certainly different but, a constant habit of freezing or hanging if you wish put me off till Mandriva came out. I tried this on a now younger machine and the same thing persisted to happen. I tried other flavours but, they all had their problems with hardware.
I tried the recent Mandriva just a couple of months ago and true to form it still hangs...
what can I say. However, I have been using various flavours of ubuntu since 2005 or 2006, can't remember precisely and now I think I have a version that may well work very well and so far does everything that I want - Ubuntu Ultimate Edition 2.6.

[ErwinC]

Ubuntu 5.10

[Shining Arcanine]

Mine was Yellow Dog Linux 6.2 on my PS3 and it almost turned me away from linux. You couldn't really do anything on it, and it more complicated to use than Ubuntu. Also setting up wireless internet was the biggest pain.

Unless installations via Wubi or Virtual Machines count, my first Linux distribution is Gentoo Linux. I had evaluated Ubuntu Linux via Wubi and virtual machines in the past, but I had never used Ubuntu Linux via either method on a regular basis or installed Ubuntu Linux in a traditional manner.

After a few years of that, I decided to evaluate Gentoo Linux in a virtual machine and I was so impressed by it that I switched to it from Windows 7 on my laptop last January. That changed my Linux usage from less than 1% on any system to 100% on my laptop.

[chessnerd]

I have noticed that no one runs YDL on their PC though. I wish I knew about the other distros made for the PS3 before I accepted that stupid update that disabled linux for my PS3.

I believe Yellow Dog was originally intended as a version of Linux for use on PowerPC (Mac) systems. Now it focuses on GPU computing. Unlike Ubuntu its focus has never been on usability.

[WinterRain]

Mepis in 04.

[98cwitr]

Fedora Core 5

[lykwydchykyn]

Either RedHat 7 or RedHat 9 sometime back in 2003. Can't remember which, or why I was using something that was so dated at the time.

I didn't much use it though, until I started using SimplyMepis in 2004.

[abbaazaabba]

GENTOO painful it took forever to install but emerge was worth it at the time. had my little buddy jumper help install it

well i just watched he did all the hard work

[dtfinch]

I first installed Red Hat 6 around '99 or 2000, from a cd that came with a book (maybe this (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0672316897) one, not sure), though I didn't use Linux heavily until 2004.

[ve4cib]

My first distro was Ubuntu 5.04. Prior to that I'd SSH'd into some Solaris 10 machines for some second-year university courses, but that wasu the extent of my Linux/Unix experience prior to installing Ubuntu.

[RiceMonster]

Arch. Messed it up big time first try.

[Ric_NYC]

Corel Linux...
:mrgreen:

[dragos240]

Fedora 7 maybe? A few months before I joined. No wait, it was a linux based boot tool. PCloginNow.

[CPPCrispy]

My first experience with Linux was a Live CD of Lamppix version 1.1 that someone gave me in 2004. When we finally got off of dial up, I downloaded Fedora 6 and used Fedora through Fedora 10 and then I moved to Ubuntu 9.04 when Fedora 11 came out. I have been here ever since but I try other versions of Linux.

[Xianath]

Slackware 2.0, summer vacation back in '94. I wonder if there are people on this thread who weren't even born then :)

[Simian Man]

Red Hat 9 in 2003.

[Legendary_Bibo]

Slackware 2.0, summer vacation back in '94. I wonder if there are people on this thread who weren't even born then :)

I was only 3! :P

[Guitar John]

Ubuntu 6.10

[zazkia]

RedHat 7.0 to me too... those were the days, istalling packages, for packages, for packages for lib files

[cbecker78]

puppy linux. 4.something. I still love that little OS

[samalex]

The first time I touched Linux was Red Hat 4.2 around 1997 but I didn't really start banging on it until Red Hat 5.2 in 1998. I believe Red Hat 6 was the first version I ran on a PC exclusively without dual-booting, but Red Hat 7 was what I used when I dropped Windows all together in 2000.

From there I ran Red Hat through 9 when RH dropped their public distro, and before they announced Fedora I had already jumped to SuSE (don't remember version) which I ran for a short while then moved to Slackware.

I used Slack until I moved to a PowerMac G4 on my desktop I think around 2004 then I retired my Linux laptop for an iBook in 2005. The G4 was retired a couple of years ago and the iBook was retired last year. Since then I've been running a System76 laptop with Ubuntu.

Sam

[Naiki Muliaina]

One of the early 'blow your PC up' Mandrake/drivas. It resurrected a laptop XP had died and never actually worked on! Flippin pre installed Windows and it never worked even as half as good as Mandy. Reminds me... Must see if they are still goin or if they have closed up now...

[kamaboko]

1999...Redhat 6

[nmccrina]

Ubuntu 6.06, fall of 2006. I was really scared to install a new OS at the time, I had no idea what was going to happen! lol

[Quadzilla63]

Going to show my age here, or at least how long I've been a linux geek. I started out with Yggdrasil Linux way back in the early to mid 90's. It came on like 27 3.5" floppies and didn't have x-windows, or any other GUI for that matter. Then gave RedHat a try, before finally switching to SuSE, and finally finding a home with Ubuntu.

[kpholmes]

suse 10

[jerenept]

Ubuntu 8.10.
Totally UGLY compared to 10.04, and would'nt sleep, took longer to start up, TOO MUCH ORANGE!!!

[lostinxlation]

Slackware 7.0 in 1999.

[Supergoo]

Red Hat 3 was my first Distro, if I remember right. Now I am Ubuntu all the way.

[Stancel]

Ubuntu 9.04, Jaunty Jackalope

I signed up for these forums in 2007, and I even ordered the free install CD back then, but alas, my computer was too old to even be able to install that version (I can't remember which one it was). I probably would have tried another Linux distro if Ubuntu hadn't been the only one I know of that ships CDs for free.

[Timmer1240]

Think it was knoppix live cd then played around with a bunch of live distros puppy was one linspire got me interested thats for sure!I always tryed the distros with the kde window manager now im in love with gnome when I first tryed gnome I didnt like it but now I luv it!Its so customizable amazing compiz Wow!tryed Ubuntu via wubi was scared to do an install I liked it so much and wubi kept crappin out after a few weeks reinstall through wubi a few times .It crapped out again so I just bit the bullet repartitioned installed Karmic and here I am!No more windows for me this is way better!still got xp and 7. 7 didnt impress me Ubuntu amazed my ***!It rocks gnome rocks happyer than hell with it!

[nerdtron]

First tried knoppix at 1st year college, then tried knoppix again at home but my ancient pc with 128MB RAM can't handle it. Next is Damn Small Linux but it's damn complicated for me. Then i saw the light!
Ubuntu 8.04 introduced me to this bright new world.

[wkhasintha]

It was Kubuntu 8.04 LTS on a PIII machine. I got along fine with it and installed Edubuntu after.

[eyeofliberty]

I believe it was Red Hat 5, followed by Mandrake and Corel. Then there was a stretch of many years without using Linux, and when I came back to it, Ubuntu 6. Mostly these days I use Debian and Arch, occasionally Slackware, but I have been very impressed with Ubuntu 10.04.

[Siveth]

1998-9 or thereabouts I got Redhat Linux with a PC magazine and dedicated a whopping 1gb of my 4gb HDD to it. It ran pretty well, tho I did not at all like the interface. (gnome?)

When I moved out of home in 2000, I got sent a copy of Slackware from a guy on a local PC enthusiast website and loved every minute of it. I cant even remember how many times I broke stuff and just reinstalled, but it was great. Learnt a lot. Over the years I strayed and checked out Mandrake as well, but always came home to Slack.

Sadly, with the amount of gaming and work, I had to dedicate my time to windows, but still 'check in' every year or so with whatever was the latest and greatest.
2010, and here I am. :)

[PC_load_letter]

Mandrake in 2003, bought the boxed version from CompUSA. IIRC, it was running KDE. It worked well, but I had trouble finding alternatives to many of the Windows apps I was using then, so I quit using it.

2006~2007 I installed Ubuuntu Feisty, happy camper since then :D

[sxmaxchine]

ubuntu 9.04

[ssj6akshat]

Redhat in 2006 at School(not mine) but i didn't knew it was Linux(or Loonix as I knew it at that time).Then on 1 January 2009 my download completed and I met UBuntu 8.10!

[MrNatewood]

Ubuntu 6.06.
Since than have tried several other distros(openSUSE, Vector, Mandriva, Mint, Debian...)

Haven't found something better yet :).

[gemmakaru]

My first was also redhat 6.0 from the back of a magazine in 1999, but I quickly moves to Suse shortly after that. I have been sort of on and off with linux since then