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!
Slackware. About 1994 or so.
Same! With the stack of disks!
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.
Sounds like me. I ordered it from a magazine and installed it from 3.5 floppy disks also. After that it was Debian and i used that for years.
I used Ubuntu until PAE became required and then switched to either Puppy or DSL (tried them both, honestly don’t remember which I stuck with). Eventually got a new computer and used Fedora and Arch (btw) for years. I’ve recently switched to Debian on a machine I just don’t wanna be arsed with worrying about breaking.
The first distro I tried was Red Hat 5 back in the late 1990s but I never got a GUI working so I guess the first one I used properly would have been Mandrake iirc. These days it’s Tumbleweed.
SLS (Softlanding Linux System) was my first.
My first distro was Ubuntu because it is a beginner distro and it looked interesting.
Debian I think? Probably Debian Wheezy.
Edit: All thanks to my college professor.
For whatever reason it was Puppy Linux, it was kinda cool and small and ran off a 700MB CD.
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.
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.
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.
Void. I was so excited when I booted into TTY. A blank canvas like never before.
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Ubuntu
Slackware. Installed from 3.5" floppy disk.
Ubuntu Late 2000’s. I wanted it because of the CUBE. But left because the only game which worked was TF2.
