Who was your first?

Redhat 2.1, a cd stuck to a huge book

Ubuntu, before Unity came along

Slackware 3.0 in 1996

Then this new promising distro called Debian

Got my own PC, went with Slackware again for some God-forsaken reason

Debian again and that's where I've stayed for most part - I tried using Ubuntu as a desktop laptop distro for a while but at some point I realised I should have installed Debian to begin with so I went with that there too

Knoppix STD

Mandrake mid 1990s

Ubuntu, it was an on-off-relationship until I finally made it

Slackware.

Fedora from 2015, to circumvent my school laptop's OS with it installed on a USB stick.

Mandrake Linux. I'm old, I know 😊

Yggdrasil LGX, back in ‘93.

The first I tried was Ubuntu 7.04 but I didn't stick with it and went back to XP. Until I ended up with a hardware setup that wouldn't work on Windows XP (widescreen monitor + Intel graphics driver with no widescreen mode options) but worked perfectly on Ubuntu 9.10. I never truly went back to Windows since.

Tried a few other distros in 2011 then switched to Arch for a couple years, Xubuntu for a couple years, Ubuntu GNOME for 7-8 years, and finally switched to Fedora last year.

Red hat on a disc from a for dummies book at the library.

Slackware 3.5 because my friend thought it'd be funny and didn't tell me fuck all about distros.

Helped me learn a lot though.

Ubuntu

I hated my first. I was raped by Ubuntu's bloated stinky and unnessecary package(s). I was getting fed up with him bringing all his relatives dependecies to live with us all snaps, evulotion, system services and gnome bullshit were too big for my laptop's small vagina ram and processor, and he was always asking for sex to start up these processes as soon as he wakes up and then keep fucking me running them in the background while I'm trying to work on anything. I literally couldn't stay and felt suffocated with him until one day I threw out rm'ed all his stuff out of my apartment laptop and went to live with minimal debian instead who asks for my consent before running anything and has treated me nicely ever since

Ubuntu 8.10

I don't like Ubuntu anymore but I loved it then

SteamOS, just seeing how friendly and similar-to-windows KDE looked (and proton running all the games I cared about) gave me all the confidence I needed to install fedora and later nobara on my desktop

AT&T SVR4

Oh, Linux. Slackware 1.2, but I had already used SunOS, Solaris, Ultrix, BSD, A/UX, and Unixware

Pop!_OS... About 5 months ago. first time user just hard switched on my main.

But now 3 PCs are running it in the house.

Linux Mint, until I made a mistake during a version upgrade and aptitude had a memory leak while trying to escape dependency hell and roll every package back. Then I replaced it with arch and am happy to be on a rolling release distro.

Guys this is off topic but I'm using Ubuntu server for a jellyfin/coding server and getting headaches trying to do things cli only.. for example connecting openvpn.

My question is how much shame is there using a distro with a gui for a server

Pop! OS

Caldera Open Linux 2.(?) back around 98/99, for long enough to download Slackware and Win98SE.

Ubuntu Server 14.04. Years later I tried Arch+Win10 dual boot, but during a forced update, Windows ate the boot partition and then unalived itself. That's when I nuked the SSD and hard-switched to Manjaro (first daily driver, never had Windows since), later Endeavour, and most recently, Arch. If/when Arch breaks, I'll most likely hop to Nix.

POS Ubuntu giving me repo cancer every other week making me think Linux for desktop was not ready.

Then I tried Debian (and XFCE) and realized Ubuntu was just on some drugs and eventually landed on Fedora after demoing some distros.

Ubuntu, then arch.

Open suse and mandrake

I was one if those newbies who went with Arch as their first distro, but I found my home with Fedora. It's not the most up-to-date or polished distro, but it's by far the best all-rounder.

Ubuntu back in the day before enshitification.

Debian

Debian in the nineties :) Watched the towers fall on slashdot...

Now on bazzite, it's also glorious.

CentOS But now it seems that it has withdrawn from the stage of history.

Puppy Linux on an old Celeron @ 333MHz, with 160MB of RAM and 4GB of disk space.

I was amazed at the speed compared to Windows XP and even 98SE. It weighed about 100MB but had quite a few applications like mtpaint, Inkscape, Abiword, some spreadsheet program (I don't remember which was it, don't think it was GNUmeric), mplayer, some lightweight browser (I think it was Midori), even XChat.

The only (and BIG) problem is that you basically ran everything as root.

Some time later I bought a more powerful PC (Intel something dual core @ 3GHz, 4GB RAM and 500GB disk), and used the pre installed Windows 7 for some time before installing Ubuntu (I think 12.04) and I've been using it since.

Raspbian (Buster) for my first; Kubuntu for my longest, and still happily enjoying it!

Call me a normie if you must, I need shit to work and I like it lookin' pretty.

Archlinux if you don't count the time when I was five. I install Ubuntu then a series of packages to make it "look and feel" like Mac os. After that I was disappointed with how janky it was as a Mac clone and switching back to windows.

I was crazy about macs when I was a kid. When I finally got one, I enjoyed the polish but ultimately found it limiting. After 15 years; about six years on macos, seven on Windows. I played with archlinux in an emulator for a few months before I nuked my system and never went back, thanks wine/DXVK!

Debian

Ubuntu. Back when win 10 was announced and all the bullshit started.

But unity was definitely not my thing, and I tried a handful of other distros on my dad's old computer. I figured if I could get a decent functionality on that, I'd be able to comfortably use whatever I settled on for a decent box.

Mint with cinnamon is where I settled. Cinnamon or plasma are perfect for my wants, and mint being debian related makes software damn easy to get going fast. What's not to like about that? I tried it with dual boot on my gaming box at the time, and then when I set up a newer box, I went straight mint. Now, the old one is my air gapped media machine running win7 because fuck life without musicbee.

Everything else is on mint except my kid's gaming laptop (which is an oxymoron imo, but whatever) because they're unwilling to try anything else, and my dad's current but ancient box running 11 and being nearly useless because of that. But he's damn near 80, so he can do whatever he wants short of shitting on the dinner table.

First time I mucked with Linux I don’t think there were any formal distros yet. Had to rawrite the kernel to my full height 5.25” 100mb hard drive

Some old ass Fedora Core distro.

Fedora

Then Arch

And finally NixOS

mandrake, in 2004

its been a long time

i think around 2013 i started occasionally tinkering with ubuntu,
i then quickly started distrohopping
(mint, debian, kubuntu, antergos and probably more)

in 2017 i started seriously using antergos (i3wm) on my work pc

i was still only occasionally tinkering at home,
untill 2022, when i learned about proton,
and fully migrated my private computer from win 10 to fedora(kde)

Day 1 was some awesome crazy dude on IRC teaching me how to compile the kernel from source, what options to choose, and then installing Slackware.

Open Suse in the mid 2000s.

I don't remember the year or the version because it has been so long (2003 maybe). It was Ubuntu from the free mail order CDs they used to give away. I remember waiting something like three months for it to arrive.

Ubuntu 6.06 LTS

Kubuntu 8.04 was my first, with the KDE 4 demo, it was pretty as fuck compared to Windows XP that came with that PC

For me, it was Mandrake, I think it was back around 2000. I played so much Tux Racer on that machine. However, after they switched the branding to Mandriva, the OS started to run pretty poorly for me around that time. I stayed away from Linux entirely until around 10 years ago when I friend introduced me to Mint. It's been my main ever since, though I've played with others since then, like OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, and most recently, Debian and EndeavourOS.

Ubuntu

Knoppix

Ubuntu Breezy (5.10)

knoppix, then slax, then slackware, then.... Ubuntu 4.10

SLS (Soft Landing System) then Slackware. 30+ years and still enjoying the Linux ride...

I think Puppy or Damn Small Linux, maybe knoppix, i was on dial up at the time. Then I found that I could request a free Ubuntu install disk and the speed and cleanliness and compiz effects blew my mind. 04 or 06, can't remember which. From there I think it was xubuntu, mint, arch, arch nvme died and I needed an os immediately so manjaro, got sick of manjaro and garuda sounded neat so i tried it and that's where I am now on my main. Made a mess toying with wayland and am ready to reinstall, probably back to arch or try out nixos

edit: reading through all these comments is bringing back so many memories of other distros I played with back then.

Epic trolled by my friend, my first was Gentoo

Elementary OS Freya. I love a good GUI

Redhat 5.2 in 1998. I think I bought a box set from CompUSA.

Knoppix, followed by Mandrake, Ubuntu, etc.

Linux Mint was the only one that I installed and used unironically followed by Kubuntu.

I'm a simpleton, I just want my OS to work.

Kubuntu

I started with Ubuntu, but since I was a kid at the time, wifi not working scared me away as I only ever knew of "everything works out of the box". After 2 years, I took a shot at linux again and I gotta say that it was mint that helped me build enough confidence in fixing any issues myself and to try other harder distros like arch. Now after all the exploring/distro hopping, I have settled down on opensuse as a daily driver, but mint will always be one of my favorites, and will always recommend it to any newbie.

Arch

I think I went Mint - MX Linux - Opensuse tumbleweed which is where I have stayed for the last year and loving it

Mandrake. After that it gets hazy, but Mandrake was first.

SuSe Linux in the early 2000s. Came on a couple of CD-ROMs. We used it to run JBoss servers at work, alongside various Unix flavours. But my first experience with Unix was in the late eighties at university. Been using Mint as my daily driver for about two years now and I'm never going back.

Ubuntu -> Mandriva -> Zorin -> Ubuntu -> Debian

Mint was my first main. Before that there were some projects on raspbian.

Pop OS. I honestly feel like it was a great transitional OS for me as a lifelong Windows user. Kind of like riding a bike with training wheels.

SimplyMepis (RIP)

Slackware back in '97.

Ubuntu, in 2006.

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed

My first was Suse Enterpise Linux. Bought from Best Buy in the late 90s.

Kubuntu 5.10 that breezy badger release was the best

Conectiva Linux. Don’t remember the version, bought a CD together with a manual a news stand.

CorelLinux

RedHat back when it was just RedHat. No RHEL. No Fedora. Late 90s.

Knoppix I think

Ubuntu -> Xubuntu -> Linux Mint XFCE

My first distro was Ubuntu 8.04, but my first experience with Linux was Damn Small Linux.

Funny enough, Damn Small Linux just had an update after all these years.

Ubuntu -> Linux Mint -> Pop!_OS -> MX linux -> EndeavourOS

FreeBSD 3.3

My first distro was Xubuntu. It was 2014-15. I was still in high school. My pc was getting old, and I read online that Linux can make your pc run faster. Since it wasn't my gaming machine, I decided to give it a try. I also read online that Xubuntu is among the lightest of distros, so decided to install that. It really was a night and day difference in performance.

I've switched distros a few times (Xubuntu -> Ubuntu Gnome -> Manjaro KDE -> EndeavourOS KDE, also run AlmaLinux on a few headless server machines) since then, but never went back to Windows ever again.

Pardus in 2007

Debian with kde, because it looked a bit like Windows.

Then slackware because it was supposedly a "simple" Linux distro. Apparently simple doesn't mean simple to use for a newbie...

Suse

Manjaro GNOME Edition,
But am now on NixOS 😸❄️🐈✨

Xubuntu just because it was the first one I found when looking for something that worked with a really old computer I had

Some form of Novell-era Suse Linux when I was in college… 20 years ago. I didn’t get it back then. Mint is my daily driver today.

The year was 2002, and the distro was Caldera Open Linux 2.2

edit to add: Currently running KDE Neon. KDE 6 is pretty great so far.

Tried MythTV for a HTPC and had some issue with a log file filling up the the whole drive. Didn't have the skill yet to fix the issue. Does messing around with the terminal in OS X count? It certainly made me more comfortable for the next time tried. I think the next major attempt was another HTPC, but this time, I just used Ubuntu + XBMC and setup it up to also be a headless torrent box. Using OS X as my main desktop still made things easier then it would have been going from Windows to Linux as the file naming and system directories were compatible.

I've been using Mint as my laptop OS for a while now and just recently switched from Mac to Mint on my desktop machine. I made an effort to never get trapped in property file types or an "eco system", so all the apps I was using were available in Linux already and the Majove Hackintosh was becoming less and less viable.

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

First Debian, then Ubuntu because people said it was better, then back to Debian because it wasn't (snaps really suck and break things), then to Pop OS (bc new laptop preinstalled with it). I also got a SteamDeck semi-recently if that counts (still use the Pop OS laptop).

Slackware. Horrible experience.

Then Ubuntu.

Now Debian.

I tried Puppy with a persistent live USB first, then I used Ubuntu through WUBI for a while until it borked my MBR.

it was mine too, in 2020... bring me memories <3

Slackware, either the first or the second release IIRC.

I had the amazing luck of being introduced to linux at such a young age that i don't remember the distro. I just remember the penguin.

But the first time I try linux for myself it was mint, of course.

Linux Mit, im still loving cinnamon

I believe it was Ubuntu, likely something like 8.04, but only in a VM. Then a few years later I tried Fedora, DamnSmallLinux, and maybe one or two others. I didn't install Linux on actual hardware until 2017 when I installed Ubuntu 16.04 and never looked back, though I tried it from a bootable USB a few times years before that. Currently on Ubuntu 22.04 on my desktop, my servers all run Ubuntu or Proxmox (Debian).

I tried installing mint a while ago but the installation failed, and my computer refused to let me boot a USB stick after that. Few days ago I fixed the issue (it was surprisingly easy) and tried Nobara. It was fucking great and made me curious as to how I survived on Windows for that many years. Fuck you Microsoft!!

First server was Debian in 2002 or so. First desktop was the first version of Ubuntu (4.10). Back then, they'd send you a free CD upon request, anywhere in the world. Dial-up was still pretty common in Australia at the time, so not having to download it was very useful. That was one of the things that really drove adoption of Ubuntu.

Slackware 4. Nothing like having to compile your kernel depending on the hardware you hand-selected for compatibility. Then entering your monitor specs in the config files by hand to get WindowMaker to run correctly.

Using on a computer, Debian back in 2011. On my own machine I first went with an Ubuntu dual boot, then later switched to Linux Mint and haven't switched to anything else since. I just love how Mint was able to give new life to the same old trooper laptop I had since 2013.

Technically zorin, but kubuntu is why I stuck with it. It's what made me like linux...

Mandrake 8.2

I have fond memories of it, as it weaned me off Windows.

Edit: Actually, Knoppix was my first foray into Linux, but Mandrake was the first Linux distro that I actually installed.

Seems appropriate that he’s about to snap her neck.

Mandrake, I wanna say ~1998 or so. But tbh, I only recently finally took the plunge and wiped all traces of M$ off my system. I've tried Linux distris over the years and always just couldn't make them work for me for one reason or another. Red hat, Debian, Mint, Ubuntu, Pop_OS, Manjaro, Arco, Endeavor. Nothing really worked out for me and something inevitably broke that genuinely wasn't my fault. Now, I have settled on pure Arch with KDE and for some reason, it's been stable and been used daily for months now and I can't think of one thing that could ever make me go back, or anywhere else for that matter.

Pretty sure Linux Mint back in 2009-2010 that my brother forced all of our family PC's to use. Now over 14 years later I have made it back to Linux Mint and oh how I've missed it.

Ubuntu, specifically the netbook edition.

That little guy struggled with Windows 7 Starter, but it got some pep in it's step when Linux was installed!

Ubuntu. Couldn't use Unity, so then installed Mint with Cinnamon.

Biolinux so ubuntu based... Now still on ubunut but considering moving to debian.

I bounced around a few different distros about twenty years ago. OpenSuse, Mint, and Ubuntu. I settled on Ubuntu (6.0X I think) because the others had a lot of trouble with hardware in my Korean laptop at the time. Ubuntu was the only one that had the track pad working right away, and also the only one I managed to get Korean keyboard input working in. I never did get the webcam working in any of them. I used Ubuntu in some form or another up until a few months ago when I switched to Mint. Largely because of Lemmy.

I am an old timer. I started with BSD before there was even a Linux. NetBSD on an Amiga 3000 before the AT&T law suite against NetBSD, then heared about Linux which was twice as clean as NetBSD and without legal issues - Later NetBSD removed all legal issues nonetheless.

First Linux was a Watch-Tower Distribution, basically a big RAM-Disk with a rudimentary Linux system which you copied to HD. No package manager, nothing. tar, make was the way to do installations. Shortly after Slackware and SuSE which basically was the same back then. Then a lot of SuSE then Debian, then Ubuntu. Don't care much about the distribution nowadays as long as it is DEB-based.

But now something to scare all of you: Today my most used POSIX environment is... Cygwin. Well, I got a Windows-Notebook for development and a VM is really clunky in comparison to a fully integrated POSIX-layer like Cygwin. For developing Stuff it actually matters very little if you use BSD, Linux, Cygwin or even Solaris.

Actual first was I think knopix or whatever it was called. My friend had a bootable floppy and we booted it on a school computer.

First real daily use was Ubuntu somewhere around 2006.

Ubuntu 6.04. It was really simple to get it up and running even back then.

Slackware, circa 1995. Kernel 1.2.8

Slackware, probably in 1997. My cousin lent me his copy, had like 100 floppies for the install.

Ubuntu because I didn't know anything about it and wanted to see if I could use it to fix my win10 account on my old laptop.

Fedora 7

@Waffelson First effort was Corel Linux back in 1999. The experience was so bad that I didn't try linux again until 2008, and it finally stuck 6 years ago. Now i'm all in.

I'm not sure what the first distro I installed was but I used to have a Linux VM running 24/7 on my Windows machine back in '06. I ran folding@home on my athlon 64 and for some reason the client at the time ran faster in a Linux VM on windows than it did in native windows. Pretty sure I was running Ubuntu but I can't be certain.

First must've been Caldera Linux in 1996 or 1997. Absolutely wild to compare with contemporaries at the time.

SuSE Linux 6.0 I believe. Its been a while and I was very young then...

Ubuntu 8.10. My XP install had gotten corrupted and I didn’t own a disc copy of Windows. One of the tech support ladies at my school gave me a copy. Once I discovered the desktop cube and GTK themes I was hooked.

First one I tried was suse. Had it installed at an installfest (ah those heady days). But when I got it home it wouldn't work with my monitor.

Second I bought Mandrake, but couldn't get that to work either because I had lost my monitor manual and couldn't give it the vsync value for it.

First one I got to work was called LibraNet. That worked great for a couple of years until they stopped supporting it because it was run by a father and son team and the father passed away.

So then I chose suse again, hoping a bigger org wouldn't suffer the same problem. But then later there was some controversy I can't remember anymore (was it with microsoft?), so I switched to Kubuntu which I have been using forever, but am going to switch to opensuse very soon for various reasons.

Fun trivia: used KDE on every one of them.

My first linux distro was i dunno how many years ago. Ubuntu I gave a old dell inspirion with an althlon to one of our church members at the time, no idea what happened to that laptop.

Currently I'm using linux mint due to recommendations for being easy, just recently switched from windows 11 actually.

Red Hat 6 in college.

Mandrake Linux 7 at home.

In 2000

Ubuntu in 2010 (with compiz' burning screen of course!). Got a new laptop a the time with decent to good specs and was shocked how bad it performed with the stock Win7 and bloated with bloatware (it was a Sony).

the family computer running ubuntu from 2010 on. I used it mainly for Web browsing and creating presentations for School. I was able to run League of Legends (that was in 2014 i think) through wine but i think it crashed in about 50% of Games during the loading screen :D. Linux gaming has truly come far since then (and now LoL doesn't run on Linux at all because of Riots Rootkit)

Suse Linux before it was opensuse

Zorin :D

I was very young when I first touched linux. It was Kali.

You can now laugh at me.

I switched to debian and other non "underage-wannabe-hacker" distros some time later.

Fedora Core, I don't remember exactly which version it was.

DLD with some 2.0 kernel.

Ubuntu 10.04.

My first distro was ubuntu 11.04 if I remember correctly.

ubuntu, manjaro was my first real foray into linux. I hopped to arch about a week later.

It's been like 5 years now. Please help.

RHEL desktop 4 when it was still free and I was in middle school

ChromeOS (more it's Debian Container)

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed

Distrohopping every view Weeks

KDE Neon

NixOS

OpenSUSE back in the early 2000s. Since my parents got a new PC and the old one from '99 wasnt able to run Windows XP properly

Started with Raspbian when I first got my Pi, and have mostly used KUbuntu or Debian since.

Ubuntu, then Mint, now Arch, but I'm too inexperienced for it and want to try Kubuntu for native KDE with Plasma desktop.

Technically the first distro i used was Lubuntu 10.04, but it was only a live cd because i was 13 by then and i was terrified that i installed linux and my father got angry at me if i left any evidence. The first one i used as a full SO to use as i like, Raspbian, so debian (wheezy, i believe).

Ubuntu

Ubuntu studio 🤣🤣🤣