Your first distribution
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!
like this
Xaphanos
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •WhatsHerBucket
in reply to Xaphanos • • •hamster
in reply to WhatsHerBucket • • •WhatsHerBucket
in reply to hamster • • •corsicanguppy
in reply to Xaphanos • • •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.
Packer by HashiCorp
Packer by HashiCorpjhdeval
in reply to Xaphanos • • •yo_scottie_oh
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •I’m on a similar path to you: Started with Ubuntu because a friend of mine had also dabbled in it, plus it has a large online community. Switched to Mint shortly thereafter, where I stayed for a while (more than a year). Currently on Fedora for the more recent packages, but sometimes I miss the familiar look & feel of the Cinnamon desktop environment (came from Windows and still use Windows for work).
On my gaming PC, I’ve gone from Windows to Pop_OS! to currently on Nobara (again, for the more recent packages).
ETA over Christmas of 2023 I installed Mint w/ Xfce on my mom’s new (used) laptop and themed it to look and feel like OS X. She knows it’s not a Mac, and I had to teach her some new workflows, but more than a year later she’s getting along well with it. Saved her a grand in the process.
BentiGorlich
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •unmagical
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Certainly_No_Brit
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •I started with Pop!_OS, because it was pretty and I was told that it was made for programmers. I was overwhelmed with the options and couldn't get Twitch to work properly (because of missing codecs), so I switched over to ZorinOS, which helped me to familiarize myself with Linux. Later I returned to Pop!_OS.
Someday I got fed up with the major version updates, so I switched to Manjaro and later to Arch btw.
Björn Tantau
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Sunny' 🌻
in reply to Björn Tantau • • •BlueÆther
in reply to Sunny' 🌻 • • •nfsu2
in reply to Björn Tantau • • •Björn Tantau
in reply to nfsu2 • • •communism
in reply to nfsu2 • • •nfsu2
in reply to communism • • •communism
in reply to nfsu2 • • •delirious_owl
in reply to Björn Tantau • • •Sivilian
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Sunny' 🌻
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •velox_vulnus
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Ardor von Heersburg
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •The first I tried was Ubuntu 10.10 but for reasons I don’t remember anymore I‘ve decided to rather install Linux Mint 10.
Used Mint for quit a while, then I had my distrohopping phase before finally setteling on plain Debian a couple of years back.
柊 つかさ
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Sickday
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •floofloof
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •MyNameIsRichard
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Petter1
in reply to MyNameIsRichard • • •WadamT
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •My very first linux distro is Zorin OS since it is Windows like and heard it is more light weight. After using it for a while, it didn't feel like more light weight to me so I switched back to Windows.
After some years later, I decided to ditch Windows completely and used Ubuntu 20.04 for about a year. When I broke Ubuntu after using about a year, I switched to Arch and still on Arch to this day.
Aatube
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Deepin since I heard good words about it.
It wasn't good.
yoshisaur
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •GolfNovemberUniform
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •gramgan
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •GitHub - dnschneid/crouton: Chromium OS Universal Chroot Environment
GitHubPetter1
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •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.
backseat
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •SamsonSeinfelder
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Pope-King Joe
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Dave.
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •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 🤘
IsoKiero
in reply to Dave. • • •assembly
in reply to Dave. • • •buckyogi
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •roguetrick
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •funkajunk
in reply to roguetrick • • •Good times.
optissima
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Possibly linux
in reply to optissima • • •optissima
in reply to Possibly linux • • •HarvesterOfEyes
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •I started with Crunchbang in its final years. It was a great introduction to Linux, to be honest. It was also a very solid distro, as it was Debian-based.
But, sadly, it eventually folded. It still has a spiritual sequel in BunsenLabs but, in the meantime, I'd moved to Arch (btw).
cetvrti_magi
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Karna
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •ninjaturtle
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •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.
Possibly linux
in reply to ninjaturtle • • •kuneho
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Lunya \ she/it
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •ares35
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •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.
shortwavesurfer
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Possibly linux
in reply to shortwavesurfer • • •Bodhi: The Enlightened Linux Distribution
Bodhi Linuxshortwavesurfer
in reply to Possibly linux • • •No, that wasn't it. I know that for sure because I tried it and was honestly a little bit confused at how it worked and did not use it for any extended period of time.
Edit: WattOS
Ferk
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •It no longer exists though. ...I guess I'm old.
themadcodger
in reply to Ferk • • •corsicanguppy
in reply to Ferk • • •The Boomer Distribution » PCLinuxOS
www.pclinuxos.comBlueÆther
in reply to Ferk • • •owatnext
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Debian I think? Probably Debian Wheezy.
Edit: All thanks to my college professor.
HarriPotero
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •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.
darklamer
in reply to HarriPotero • • •I would, I downloaded Slackware through dialup, sometime late 1994.
Possibly linux
in reply to darklamer • • •darklamer
in reply to Possibly linux • • •christopherius
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Dariusmiles2123
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •I think the first distribution I tried was Fedora on my PlayStation 3 around 2007. From what I remember, you had to use terminal a lot so I couldn’t do anything with it.
Then a few months later I tried Ubuntu on an old Dell computer from my father’s office.
Dual booted windows and Ubuntu for years until fully switching to Linux around 2021.
Now I’m only using Fedora with a few virtual machines for some specific needs.
bigmclargehuge
in reply to Dariusmiles2123 • • •Dariusmiles2123
in reply to bigmclargehuge • • •From what I remember, it wasn’t difficult to set everything up.
What scared me was having to use the terminal a lot so I gave up really quickly.
Maybe Fedora was more complicated back in the days or maybe I just hadn’t noticed you could do everything with a GUI.
Borkdornsorkpor
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •I started on Debian with XFCE. I figured if there were so many distros based on Debian, then I might as well just use that so I'd be able to configure things myself and learn more about how the OS works.
Anyway, you know the section in the Debian wiki called DontBreakDebian? I did not follow that advice. It went poorly. I've since learned from my (many) mistakes and have been running Fedora KDE for a while now.
Possibly linux
in reply to Borkdornsorkpor • • •bigmclargehuge
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •wildbus8979
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Rentlar
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Vilian
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •entropicdrift
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •tuckerm
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •The first distro I used would be CentOS, followed closely by Gentoo. CentOS was installed on the computers in the computer lab in college, and Gentoo was on the computers in the library. I think I went to the computer lab first. I'm probably biased against those two now, since every time I was using them I was banging my head against the keyboard trying to get some programming assignment to work, or desperately finishing a paper before midnight. :P
The first I installed and used myself was Ubuntu, which I still use. I just bought a System76 laptop, though, and I'm debating if I'll just go with Pop OS or switch to Debian.
onTerryO
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •sxt
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •ara
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •DistroWatch.com: antiX
distrowatch.compol5xc
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •yobananaboy
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Got fed up of Windows Vista, so I decided to try Linux. I was just a kid messing around, so tried some distros but Ubuntu stuck because I found it noob friendly. I think I went for Ubuntu 6.06. I started to get interested in PC gaming, then I dual booted Ubuntu and Windows 7 since gaming was not really a thing on Linux then. I found that to be a hassle so when Windows 10 came out I stuck with it.
Then I jumped back to Linux when going back to do an IT degree in uni a couple of years back. Tried Ubuntu, but hated it. I tried Manjaro, but it broke my system. Then I discovered EndeavourOS and have stayed with that. Started to jump DE's instead. Went from GNOME to Xfce and now I am going for Cinnamon. I have tried some distro jumping in VM. I really tried to get into NixOS, but it was just too much for me. I liked Mint though.
allywilson
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •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
jbk
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Bo7a
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •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.
corsicanguppy
in reply to Bo7a • • •I worked on Caldera Open Linux. It was a tough merge, Caldera taking over our shop, but the work was good and valuable and we derived a lot of pride from solving tricky issues. Working with the company Caldera bought (on DrDos Lawsuit money) remains, decades later, my best working experience ever.
It's nice to see it was occasionally magical on the outside.
Bo7a
in reply to corsicanguppy • • •SigHunter
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •BlueÆther
in reply to SigHunter • • •eric
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Possibly linux
in reply to eric • • •kib48
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •My first was Ubuntu 14.04 on some old HP laptop my dad had lying around. I still miss Unity sometimes
I'm all in on Fedora nowadays though, unless you count SteamOS lol
delirious_owl
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •HouseWolf
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •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.
Keanu Chungus
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •rotopenguin
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Kristof12
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •MetricIsRight
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •guywithoutaname
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Ludrol
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •There are no edgy teenagers here?
Kali Linux to be an elite hax00r
Then Linux mint and now Ubuntu.
OldFartPhil
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •discontinued Ubuntu Linux installer for Windows
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)SayCyberOnceMore
in reply to OldFartPhil • • •absGeekNZ
in reply to OldFartPhil • • •I ran Ubuntu 8.04 for a while, it was the unstable. I gave it another crack when 10.04 came out. I haven't looked back.
Currently running Mint, cinnamon is a great desktop
CodandChips
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •geoma
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •jfx
in reply to geoma • • •Goku
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •SayCyberOnceMore
in reply to Goku • • •Quazatron
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •bluegandalf
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Muddybulldog
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Pantherina
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Mint of course, then Manjaro and MXLinux. The weird stuff people recommend. Then Kubuntu, KDE Neon, Fedora KDE and now various Fedora Atomic variants.
Baron Von J
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •TrivialBetaState
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Wilmo Bones
in reply to TrivialBetaState • • •Murdoc
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •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.
jaagruk
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •I had a potato PC
communism
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •billgamesh
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •rpr
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Kindness
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •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.
mdurell
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •LeFantome
in reply to mdurell • • •Our speciations were slightly lower then.
mdurell
in reply to LeFantome • • •Synestine
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Slackware 1.2, because it came on a CD in the back of a fat paperback manual I got at Barnes and Noble. It was only later that I learned what a distro is.
Currently on Fedora with a Frankenstein desktop of my own concoction.
MTK
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •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
ani
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •danielfgom
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •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
Thorned_Rose
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •bitwolf
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Ubuntu 8.04.
Was still in elementary school at the time.
I thought the themes were really cool, especially the compiz effects.
gian
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Slackware with some version of FVWM. Installed from a couple dozens floppies. (yes, I am that old )
It is the only one available for download at the time as floppies.
calm.like.a.bomb
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •LeFantome
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •SLS
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softlanding_Linux_System
I used to have to head into University to use the Sun Lab ( Sun Microsystems workstations ) to download all the floppy images. Took forever.
I would copy the X configuration from the Sun machines so that my 486 at home looked the same. For some reason, that made me feel like my PC was a “real” UNIX workstation.
Linux distribution
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)WatTyler
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Linux distribution
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)SagXD
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Eugenia
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •limelight79
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •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.
lnxtx
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Drito
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •juliebean
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •in '08, i first installed linux on my own system and actually got to use it. i'm not sure what i installed first, cause i did a fair bit of distrohopping, but i settled on ubuntu mate for a while.
t0mri
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Tebz
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •I think the first one I installed was Debian back in '97 when I was 12. I think my dad helped a bunch, but I can't really remember stuff from back then very well.
My initial thought was that it was gentoo which I used as my principal OS for close to ten years. I don't know how many times I reinstalled, but enough that I basically had it by memory. Taught me to keep my home dir on a separate partition.
These days I mostly live in windows because AutoCAD is a part of my professional life, but I dual boot popos on weekends. Unless kernel updates break my displaylink docking station...
я не из калининграда
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Curdie
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •MXX53
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Ben "Werner" Zucker
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •the16bitgamer
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Wes_Dev
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •ccunix
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •CetaceanNeeded
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Last
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •zatanas
in reply to Last • • •butter_fly
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •bruhsoulz
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •4vr
in reply to Tekkip20 • • •Mandrake.
And then to Debian and to Ubuntu for a good time.
Now using Arch mainly to avoid Snap & Flatpak.
Anders Rytter Hansen
in reply to Tekkip20 • •@Tekkip20
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.
@Linux
Anders Rytter Hansen
in reply to Anders Rytter Hansen • •@Linux
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.
@Tekkip20