@Tekkip20 MKLinux DR 2, my first distro on a PowerPC. Followed by LinuxPPC and finally Yellow Dog Linux. Linux on a Mac pre OSX. Red Hat was the DE.
this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2024
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messed around some with slack 0.99.
but first one to actually see some regular usage was buzz, which progressed over time through to potato.
and the first to get its own dedicated box long-term was woody.
fedora 38 KDE Plasma. still using it today
Ubuntu 10.10 on a Dell Latitude D505 with an intel core 2 duo and 512MB RAM running Windows XP. It was a school laptop that i cracked the admin password for and installed virtualbox. It ran like crap!. I knew it wasn't ubuntu's fault and later always booted from a nub sized USB that i always had plugged in with persistance. I can't remember the name of the OS at this moment, but it was made for low-end hardware and was specifically environmentally friendly with a green leaf as its logo.
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It was slackware 2.0.
It was the only distro I could get my hands on because who would download a distro on dialup. Also there were no CD burners nor USB sticks yet. So whatever your friend had on CD waa the option. I guess the only other possible option would've been red hat back in those days.
It was the only distro I could get my hands on because who would download a distro on dialup.
I would, I downloaded Slackware through dialup, sometime late 1994.
Then in 3 weeks you would have a usable system
Seriously, Slackware at that time was wonderfully well planned and optimized, the stack of floppies needed for a fully usable system was remarkably small and downloadable.
Pop-Os in summer 2021, running Arch Linux with Hyprland now in 2024.
Mine was Ubuntu. I can't remember what version but they used to mail install discs to you.
Mint of course, then Manjaro and MXLinux. The weird stuff people recommend. Then Kubuntu, KDE Neon, Fedora KDE and now various Fedora Atomic variants.
- mint crashed randomly
- manjaro is very shady but was awesome, convinced me of KDE
- MXLinux was great but horribly outdated. Will never use a "stable" distro as desktop. Nextcloud was incompatible so I needed to switch
- Kubuntu crashed and many Ubuntu .deb apps where horrible, Flatpaks where awesome
- KDE Neon was an unstable mess and likely still is
- Fedora KDE was nice but also had KDE blackscreens
- Fedora Kinoite also gave me issues but either they are hardware related, or upstream KDE issues, or upstream Kernel issues, etc.
I'm pretty sure it was Debian in the early aughts.
IIRC it was Ubuntu 8.10
Knoppix 3.2 Live CD 2003
I started with trying distros in live mode out of general curiosity. My machine had a ton of data and didn't support dualbooting so I didn't want to install something. Then my Windows license broke and I decided that pirating is not great so I wanted to install a distro. I liked Manjaro the most(I know I know but hey back then I didn't know about its issues) but couldn't install it because of a wrong boot device mode (lol I was an absolute noob then). So I flashed KDE Neon and installed it after finally figuring out the BIOS/UEFI stuff (was too lazy to reflash Manjaro lol). It wasn't much of a conscious choice. I just installed one of the KDE distros I liked pretty much the same after I couldn't install Manjaro but that probably saved me a few hours of troubleshooting so that's good. KDE was a requirement though. I did want a Windows-looking distro so my older family members could use it. After that I tried many distros. Now I'm on Cachy just because of the significantly smoother experience (optimization rules!). It's unstable though so I don't recommend it
Linux Mint in late 2021. Now, in 2024, I am on NixOS.
Zorin then AntiX I had a potato PC
Fedora 6 back in 2007-8 as a part of my CompTIA A+ training. It wasn't required but my instructor wanted some of us more advanced students to experience a life outside of Windows.
I think it was SLS. I know it took a pile of floppies. At some point I made a tape to make it easier to install. Why I needed to install that often eludes my aging memory but those experiences still pay to this day.
From the SLS FAQ:
Q: How do I upgrade SLS
A: If from .96, you don't. You must re-install from scratch. Otherwise,
read the ChangeLog file and download just the needed files manually.
Q: Can I install a new version of SLS over an old one?
A: Best not to. Save what you want somewhere and use mk[*]fs. SLS may
be best for base installs. Updates you can often get anywere on the net.
That is, unless you follow the upgrades to SLS religously.
Our speciations were slightly lower then.
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Mint ig
I first installed mint on a pc, but only for homebridge. First distro I really used was openSuse tumbleweed and after that I shortly switched to Arch because I liked the way the AUR work (using yay) better, than the community repos of openSuse.
I still recommend openSuse TW to anyone that wants to try a rolling release distro. You don’t even need the Terminal in that distro.
My first distro was Ubuntu because it is a beginner distro and it looked interesting.
Back Track 5. Now Kali Linux.
I had not suitably prepared. I was a Windows Vista power user who heard how I could crack some Wi-Fi and gave it a whirl.
My chips went into one basket and me, oh my, was the transition ever so uncomfortable. What was dual booting? Who knows. Long story short, I made a mess for myself. I went through a significantly steeper learning curve than most, though it introduced me to script kiddie tools, programming, and eventually exploits.
Now a decade or so later, I've settled away from Arch to Debian. Though I miss the bleeding edge, my update frequency has lost much of it's zealous edge.
My first installed Linux distro was Ubuntu 5.10. I started experimenting with Linux because my neighbour at the time said good things about Linux. He used windows himself but he also heard good things about Linux and spread the word in curiousity. Eventually I was the one of us who made the jump.
And now I'm on fedora 39 kinoite because I like the immutable image-based features such as being able to build my own images in the cloud and being able to roll back to any previous version if something messes up in an upgrade. And also I have more control over what software is installed on the host system because it's all written in my Dockerfile so if I want to uninstall something and all of its dependencies, I'm just gonna remove it from the Dockerfile.
It was some weird tablet like UI that I installed on a weak old laptop to use it again.
I have no clue which distro it was but I never came across it again
Because my first computers were shitty, I started with antix as main system, Ubuntu or others were too laggy for my systems.
My real first time using Linux was with Pop!_OS in April last year.
debian in 2007. still using it alongside mint
The very first one was Fedora but it seemed very bare and I had no idea how to get apps etc.
So I switched to Ubuntu and used that for a while before distro hopping.
Now I've settled on Linux Mint Debian Edition
I wanted to try Ubuntu on a live disk back in highschool (~2012) but ended up wiping the drive on my laptop. Had to ask a friend who knew Linux for help so I could actually use it. That was eventually followed by debian and Manjaro. Later I tried arch on my desktop, got tired of that and switched back to windows for a few years. I've been running nixos for a while now and have been really enjoying it.
The first I used was some version of Red Hat Linux. The first I installed was Mandrake 10.1.
First UNIX was QNX, random free CD on a magazine.
First Linux was Mandrake 7.0, then moved to RedHat, then distro hopped for about...20-25 years so far I guess :-p
Linux Lite lol
Fedora Linux thanks to some random YouTube video. I liked it, slowly made it my daily-driver, and still use it today. It just works, often, at least.
I ordered a laptop (five years ago) that had Ubuntu/Gnome preinstalled, but soon replaced it with Debian/Mate, mainly because of what I read about it on Distrowatch. My new laptop (one year old) shipped bare metal and runs Fedora/Cinnamon.
Caldera linux 1.2.
Those days were magical.
I had just started my university days and I had two young kids who wanted to watch cartoons but we couldn't afford cable. I ended up scrounging parts from the garbage bins in and behind the computer lab to scrape together a workable desktop.
If I recall correctly it was 333 MHz. Originally installed Windows 98 SE on it. But media would stutter no matter what I did, even if all other processes were killed.
A monk friend of mine (my university was geographically attached to a Benedictine monastery) asked me if I had tried Linux as it should be easier on the system resources and still allow me to play most media.
The rest, as they say, is history.
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For whatever reason it was Puppy Linux, it was kinda cool and small and ran off a 700MB CD.
My first, I'm pretty sure, was Ubuntu but for playing around with.
My first one that I stayed with and kept as an actually OS was PopOS. Haven't changed since. Works well and does what I need. Can't wait to see what Cosmic has in store.
As for what made me go to Linux. Windows was cumbersome to program in. Had to use another app to run command lines, putty. Used Linux terminals before and knew that it was easier to run programs from command line so I decided to give the desktop a try. So much better! Ended up keeping Linux because it was faster, more clean, and I was able to accomplish majority of the tasks I used windows for. For the things that don't work on Linux, I have other devices for.
Back in my day Pop os wasn't a thing
I chose Pop!_OS as my first because I was worried about Nvidia drivers and everyone told me Pop was a safe bet. Stayed with it for about 3 weeks despite a lot of weird issues with audio drivers and just not liking a lot of the Ui even after customizing it heavily, before it completely shit itself one day and I couldn't even load a backup.
Went back to Windows for 2 months before trying EndeavourOS w/KDE and it's been my main for almost a year now.