Simple question. Which distribution was your introduction?
For me, it was SLS Linux in '92-93, followed relatively naturally by Slackware, which was followed by Redhat.
Slackware and then SuSE 7.2, I think it was.
Slackware here, and I still use it! Tried several alternatives but I just keep going back.
As a kid in 1998, I installed Slackware to one of the two family computers. My parents were less proud than you might possibly think.
That’s crazy. If one of my kids installed any Linux distribution on a computer, I’d be proud as hell.
Mandrake Linux 6.5. At the time I was drawn to it because they had a version that worked with the sims game.
Debian 3.0 for me in 96. I used the boot floppies version as my PC didn’t have a CD-ROM in it. I think there was like 20-something floppies.
I also still have my CDs from that era for Slackware and Redhat 5.0 somewhere…
Red Hat Linux 6.2. I, too, got it out of a book, but I don’t remember which one.
I didn’t know about Linux until I was in my late teens, and even then didn’t care because I was a “Gamer” (ugh). My first disto was Ubuntu. I have used many distros but like debain the most.
RedHat here in the late 90s, back when you could still find yourself writing a “modeline.”
Then Debian in the early 00s when apt was still a major discriminator. Finally, Ubuntu around 2008 just so I was running the same thing I was recommending to family members for ease of use. (At the time, Ubuntu sported the same ease of installation and hardware detection I’d found with Knoppix.)
Now on Xubuntu, but seriously eyeing a return to Debian.
RedHat in the mid-late 90s here too. It wasn’t a great time for the linux desktop haha. I think I used afterstep or windowmaker back then. RPM hell was bad and hosed my system enough that Debian was like a savior with apt-get. Never really looked back from debian based systems since.
A PowerPC version of Ubuntu (I forget now the exact version or year but it was sometime around 2005ish) that I ran from a live CD on my G4 Mac Mini.
First I actually installed and used seriously was Ubuntu 12.04 on an old PC.
Slackware, installed with floppies on a 486.I tried debian red hat suse coral linux but always came back to Slackware.There was a bunch more, that I cant remember the names of, one I do remember was Stampede linux, Daniel Robbins put it out, he then dumped it and made Gentoo, I used Gentoo for a year or so, on an original AMD Athlon, it was night and day different from un optimised Slackware. I saw an announcement for a new distro on the gentoo forums for Arch, 686 optimisations, no need to compile!. I installed that and used it for about 9 years. I got sick of all the breakages, the systemd adoption drama, briefly went back to Gentoo( or Funtoo, actually), then discovered Void. I have been using Void since 2010, I also use Openbsd, reminds me of the ‘old days’ of linux before the tech bros and corporations.
Mandrake Linux 6.5. At the time I was drawn to it because they had a version that worked with the sims game.
My first I used was Slackware back in 2002 on a 486 with a 250MB disk. Wasn’t easy when you have to compile half the software and there’s basically nor enough room for the build environment. This was on a small test and development PC I used whilst at uni.
When I went all in on my desktop and waved Windows goodbye I used Ubuntu as that’s what I’d had good experience with on my headless VMs.
Now running EndeavourOS and love it.
I just flashed back to running my first Linux box and struggling to get X Windows working with a miniscule amount of RAM and a swap partition.
I’m thinking I had 1 MB RAM on that machine. I can’t wrap my head around that. It just seems impossible. I do remember my wife bought me 16MB RAM as an anniversary present after that, and I was excited by how much easier everything was with so much memory.
I think the 16MB was around $1000.00 at the time.
#!
Gone too soon :(
Linux Mint 20. I got my first computer and was choosing an operating system. I didn’t even understand differences between Windows and GNU+Linux, but it was faster, UI was consistent, and the community was actually supportive. Most issues I had were already solved so I could find solutions online easily. r/linuxmint also led me to creating a Reddit account xD
Meanwhile support for Windows looked like: Turn it off and on again, run sfc /scannow, dism, chkdsk, you may need to reinstall Windows.
So I went with Mint.
Funny, but at first when I didn’t know about “Distributions” I was searching for just pure Linux. Poor old me didn’t know I was accidentally searching for the kernel.Welp, the laptop broke after 2 months (hardware), but it was old. I definitely don’t miss that Athlon 64.
Gentoo, fall 2004, first a stage 3, then a stage 1. Learned SO MUCH from doing that!
