Remember 7.04?

[realitykid]

I sure do. It was the first Ubuntu I'd ever used. I was in 9th grade at the time when my dad gave me a larger hard drive for my computer. I was so thrilled because the old hard drive I had was dead, and was only 2gb. The new (to me) one was 17.2gb if I remember correctly.

I had a Ubuntu 7.04 cd that I had got in the mail, so I popped it into the cd drive of my old Pentium 3 450mghz computer (which had only 256 or so mb of ram) and attempted to install. I had to try several times as the installer would just hang. One day, I decided to let it try and install while I went to school. When I got back from school hours later, it had installed perfectly.

Now, this was back when I lived in a rural area where all we had for internet was either satellite (too damn expensive) and dial up (and it's still like that in the same area). I had dial up. And I'm sure we all know how painful it is to set up Linux with a dial up connection.

I had to use my mothers old Windows 98 computer to download the source to the drivers for my modem, which was a Lucent WinModem if I remember correctly. It was the Martian drivers I believe. Using a floppy disk, I transferred it over to my computer, and followed some instructions here on the forums to get it compiled and installed. It took me a lot of time in the terminal, which I was not accustom to at the time (still mainly a gui kinda guy). But patience paid off and I was able to get online. However, because of the dial up, I never did system updates. And it didn't matter much to me anyway as I was a version behind. 7.10 wouldn't install at all.

Since then, I've gone back and forth between three different distros of Linux (Ubuntu, Mepis, Linux Mint) and two different versions of Windows (XP and 7).

Today, I'm using Ubuntu 11.10 and dual booting it with Windows 7 Home Premium.

I decided to install 7.04 in VirtualBox for nostalgia, and I must say that a lot has changed about Ubuntu in the last three to four years.

I am posting this from inside VBox running 7.04. Makes me feel almost like I'm still in freshman year of high school (which ended abruptly after graduation a few months ago. I kinda miss it).

Anyway, let me know what version of Ubuntu you first used and your experiences with that version.

[kaldor]

7.10 was my first release. Luckily, I was one of the people who had little to no problems with Linux. The only thing that did not work in 7.10 was the 3d acceleration due to the lack of open source ATI drivers and no Catalyst driver available (very old card). Everything aside from gaming worked 100% fine and without problems. I kinda miss the old brown and orange :(

[PaulW2U]

Anyway, let me know what version of Ubuntu you first used and your experiences with that version.

Ubuntu 10.04, 10.10, 11.04, Kubuntu 11.04 and 11.10 in that order. I didn't even think about installing Linux when 7.04 was released. I had failed to install every distribution that I had tried many years earlier!

So I went from a solid Gnome release to an even better one (10.10), on to Unity which always felt slightly buggy to me and then took a sideways step to Kubuntu where I'm now quite happy. A couple of attempts at installing Ubuntu 11.10 on my old PC and netbook have so far failed in one way or another. Which is a shame as I really would like to have it available for long term use.

What is surprising is that the older Kubuntu releases that I briefly tested (10.04 and 10.10) didn't work too well but the later releases are a great improvement. I'm finding that Ubuntu gets harder to install with each release but Kubuntu gets easier.

[jrozo17]

Ahh, I remember when I first found out about Linux/Ubuntu, I was so excited. It was a couple years back, and our old main PC with XP always had problems(mainly from me messing around on it). Everyone was sick of the settings getting screwed up so easy so I searched for an alternative.

I stumbled across Mandriva Linux and was curious about it, so I burnt it to a CD. WOW was I surprised, there was no XP or Apple logo, something completely different. The mouse pointer, theme, and background were all different from what I was used to. I never knew another OS existed before then, lets just say I was a noob lol. Anyway I had a good run with Mandriva but never got the sound to work, so I installed Ubuntu 8.04 back when it was released, I think I was a sophomore in high school.

Anyway I just graduated a couple months back as well and have been following up with Ubuntu ever since. Not to mention I've learned a lot more about computers. :)

For 11.10, I'm not sure if I have an opinion on it yet. I don't love it but don't hate it. I guess I just got used to the interface that has two panels, I don't know. My guess is though that within a year or two Unity will be much more refined, so I'll wait for that day to install it as my main OS. For now it's Windows 7, I need a lot of the programs for my college classes.

:guitar:

[kevin882]

My first version of ubuntu was 5.10 I had read about it online somewhere and I ordered a stack of 64.bit and 32bit distros and gave them to friends and others who were interested. This was back in 2004.

[BigSilly]

Ah 7.04. Feisty Fawn. I remember thee!

Feisty was my first proper Linux. I'd played with Mandriva and Freespire after having problems with my XP install. I'd enjoyed them a bit, but 7.04 was a complete revelation in comparison. All the tricky bits I couldn’t fathom on the other distros seemed to make sense with Ubuntu. Plus, it seemed to me to make much more of the fact that it was Free Software. I started to understand what the GNU was all about, and the difference between proprietary and open source. It was thanks to Ubuntu that I began to make sense of the whole thing, not just Linux but computers full stop, and it has been a lot of fun watching it grow and grow over the years.

I think it's only going to get bigger, and we've only just started. :)

[Perfect Storm]

Heh, I can't specific remember 7.04 - but I do remember when I first time jumped to Ubuntu 4.10 beta release. There was a lot of noise on the Linux community about a new distro based on Debian started by a rich 'famous' man. At the time I had been using Mandrake a couple of years and heard the news on 'mandrakeusers.org' and decided to take the jump.

[Primefalcon]

7.10 was my first release myself, and I deleted windows to try it.... still using Ubuntu as of now..... tried a lot of others including OpenSuse but still keep coming back to the buntu!

[Roasted]

My story:

17 years old. Part time job. Spent every dime I had on building my first custom computer. Except... I forgot an operating system.

My cousin who's an IBM infrastructure engineer was being a squeaky wheel about installing Linux. I did so I could just get email and aim until I could get another paycheck in to buy Windows XP.

6.06 was my poison of choice.

Then... something happened... I realize I didn't need Windows. Like.. seriously. I had zero use for it from there on out.

The rest of history. <3 me some 11.10. :popcorn:

[koleoptero]

My first ubuntu was 7.04 too. I have not so fond memories of trying to make beryl work. :D

My first linux distro though was redhat 6.4 in 2000.

[Docaltmed]

My first exposure to Linux was through my older brother, a DBM. It wasn't Ubuntu, it was RedHat, and this was many years ago.

I remember him ranting about how much better Linux was than Win 3.1 or 95, I can't remember which, and how I should install it. He had CAT-5 cabled his house and was running Linux on the "house server." I just figured he was just blowing smoke, as usual (hey! He was my older brother!)

Fast forward to Ubuntu 8.04, and I stumble in Ubuntu's door on the back of a crumped HP/Vista tablet, and never looked back.

Never got a chance to thank my brother for his advice. His heart got him first.

[speedwell68]

My first Ubuntu was 6.10. 7.04 was a complete revelation to me, it was the first time it began to all make sense for me. Not the best Ubuntu, that was 10.04, but I am liking 11.10. 11.10 is my first real go with a 64 bit distro, not sure if I like 11.10 fully yet.