What was the first ever distro you installed and used? For me, it was Mint as I seemed like the closest thing to Windows minus all the forced updates and chappy changes.
Currently on Fedora GNOME now but what about you? What made you choose your first distro diving into the world of Linux?
I wanna hear your thoughts!
Ubuntu back in 2013 (I think?) to get the exclusive TF2 item. Good times! :D
Slackware in the late 90s. 3.x version. “If you want to know how Linux works, ask a Slackware user” used to be the mantra back in the day.
I’ve been using Kubuntu on my desktop machines for at least a decade now. So, I’ve completely lost track of some of the things going on, like docker, flatpak, and so on. Which is actually a good thing: Linux has gotten so good, I no longer need to know how to administer my Linux system. I can just use it.
I currently run Debian on my server and intend to switch my desktop to Debian as well. Haven’t gotten around to it…been busy. I also have to figure out how best to set up the nvme drive I have for it - GPT partition tables? Do I need a FAT32 partition? Etc.
Yggdrasil in 1993. Why? Because it was the easiest to install at the time, and came with one of my books in college.
Mine was an obscure, short-lived distro called LibraNet. It was well done though, by just a father and son team. Unfortunately that was also why it was short lived, because the father passed away.
As for why I picked it, I didn’t really know much about how to choose a distro at the time, so I picked it based on the name, and its description of being easy to use and set up, which it was.
I kept hearing mutahar (someordinarygamers) talk about virtual machines and eventually i managed to get a laptop so i tried making one and Ubuntu was my pick (cus he recommended it for noobs), i hardly knew anything ab linux then but i figured a vm would be the perfect chance to try it :) . Later on when i first decided i wanted to try rawdogging linux it was cus my friend had an old laptop he never used so i asked if i could have it and he didnt mind. The thing was so slow the start menu (the thing u open when u press the windows button) literally took minutes to open. So i eventually checked its specs and downloaded a few distros trying them out and settled on mx linux cus it seemed to tick the most amount of boxes for me :3 (also i got around downloading linux on my main device later on, been using fedora on it.)
Ubuntu Late 2000’s. I wanted it because of the CUBE. But left because the only game which worked was TF2.
My first distro was Suse Linux 8.1. I had to buy the box as downloading was not an option with my dial-up connection back then. However, the first distro that I fell in love with was Fedora Core. The original one. I bought the book which had the DVD with the full installation. I was hooked. That was more than 20 years ago.
This is really cool man, its wild how much things have changed but those are super endearing.
Ubuntu
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.
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Pop-Os in summer 2021, running Arch Linux with Hyprland now in 2024.
Slackware. About 1994 or so.
Slackware2 or maybe 3 in 95.
RHL4.x from 1998 . Looked at debian, but a local snob convinced me halfway through explaining “the debian way” to steer clear. Didn’t even learn of the validation glitch in the .deb format by then.
Now it’s Rocky. But if PCLinuxOS had a better installer (like a good kickstart) I’d be there in an instant. Its massive versatility in having so many versions of apps available without the appstream bullshit - it’s just Alternatives and proper naming - really makes it stand out.
Now let me packer some templates and I’m SO done with ELs and the shit RH has done to their crown jewels.
Same! With the stack of disks!
Luckily we could FTP
Look at fancy pants over here with ftp and internet access!
Red Hat 5.0, 1998.
Had to get it on a CD as it would have taken 37.5 years to download according to Internet Explorer.
Kernel 2.0.36 represent 🤘
I was RedHat 3 back in 1996. Not even sure how we got the CD but we all passed it around and were amazed.
5.2 for me. I got it as a gift, in a offical retail box. I think the box with manuals is still around somewhere, but I’m not sure where.
Gentoo. I figured I could learn much more that way. It was true. The Wiki was excellent. Still is as far as I know.
Red Hat Linux 6.0, back in 1999. It was one of the first distributions to include GNOME as the default desktop environment.
