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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I'm new to #Lemmy and making myself feel at home by posting a bit!
My first Linux distribution was elementary OS in early March 2020. Since then, I’ve tried Manjaro, Arch Linux, Fedora, went back to Manjaro, and since early January 2023, I’ve landed on Debian as my home in the #Linux world.
What was your first Linux distro?
Mandrake 6.0 in 1998. The kernel was still 2.2, and KDE 1.1.1.
Me as well. I don't remember where / how I got the CD. Linux as a desktop has come so far since then!
This brought back some memories: https://www.mandrakelinux.org/
Welcome to Lemmy stranger.
Slackware back in the early 90s on a Compaq 386/SX20 💾
Also Slackware!
But I skipped from my 286 to a Pentium 133 (then went a bit backwards to a 486 dx100, then ahead to some cyrix and AMD).
It was such a cool time for CPUs. Going up a generation was like getting a supercomputer. And Intel had those cartridge CPUs…
Such a wild time... I started building PCs for people (even my gym teacher), it was so fun - and yeah, such a huge ju.p e very time!
Now I have the same build for nearly 15 years with upgrades along the way, and my servers are all decom'd t/m/m PCs.
Well shit you got me beat I ran Slackware from 3.5 disks in the 90s on a 486dx2. I sent away for those disks to be mailed to me. I even did something crazy with that machine I had lots of ram so I sent them off to a company to combine them together. I want to say it 8 or 16 megabytes. Bit I can't remember now.
That’s great, I didn’t even know that was a service you could get. I remember being really disappointed when I realized that a SIMM would not actually fit in one of my 386s ISA slots 😅
Slackware, of course, but when Debian was first released two years later I obviously switched (and it's been Debian since then).
Welcome to Lemmy!
For me the first Linux distribution I used was Ubuntu 8.04 - though I never had installed it on physical hardware, just a VM - VirtualBox IIRC (that didn't occur till Ubuntu 8.10). I was in my early teenage years and had discovered Linux and found it interesting, I used the WUBI tool to install it through Windows and updated the bootloader to keep Windows as the default (with a one second timeout) since it was the family computer, I think my family would've shat their pants if they randomly rebooted the PC and was greeted with Linux heh.
Though a few years later on an old secondary family laptop (it was the "someone else is using the other computer" spare/backup) that was running Vista, it had gotten so buggy and bogged down that I installed Kubuntu for my family and they happily used that until eventually that laptop was retired. It never got them to really look into permanently switching to Linux, but I think that's more than fine - I've never been one to "proselytize" Linux: If it is the right tool for you, fantastic - if not, no hard feelings is how I see it. In the aforementioned case, it was the better tool over the bogged down and buggy Vista.
As for nowadays, its CachyOS on my desktop (I'm not married to it, but its been working alright for me for about a year now), SteamOS on my Deck, Fedora on my secondary laptop (an old intel macbook), and then Bazzite on my ROG Ally. Windows is still installed on a secondary drive on my desktop, but I very rarely have to boot into it.
Raspbian Wheezy.
In the early 90’s I downloaded Slackware to floppy disks. It took me several days to make them. Slackware holds a special place in my heart.
To this day I still use Linux full time. Arch is my go to, but I like and recommend Endeavor often.
Ubuntu had a thing for a while where they would send you a CD if you asked for it. Friend of mine from school gave me one.
I grew up a windows user, as was my father before me. I first started with Linux in my teens, initially on Raspbian as I was gifted a raspberry pi 2b with a camera, and I wanted to try goofing around with python and computer vision (which was the style at the time.) Once I entered university, I dual booted Windows 7 and Linux Mint, since my professor suggested moving to Linux for C++ homework to make things simpler. I was scared of jumping to a new desktop OS due to my upbringing, so I couldn't abandon Windows, not yet anyway. Following that I had a cheap Summer fling with Kali as it was a requirement for a cyber security course I took. This replaced my Mint install. After college I got into self-hosting, and my server ran Debian for stability (and still does to this day), however I was still scared of leaving the safety of my littlr Windows garden I called home. But then Windows betrayed me by putting ads on my taskbar, and I got fed up. I installed EndeavorOS on my main machine which was a laptop. I immediately fell head over heels for the AUR, and not needing a deep understanding of linux during the install was a plus. I got comfy with the ins and outs of linux over the next year and a half or so, and when I finally went to build myself a new desktop PC, I made the switch to Arch. It's been great, and I felt like I understood all the decisions I made during the install. That was 6 months ago. If Arch ever fails me catastrophically,(which would be pretty hard as I am using an os snapshot manager, and backing those snapshots up to my server) I will move to either Debian or Mint for stability, as I am kind of tired of hopping around at this point.
My first was Slackware in the 90s after a friend introduced it to me. He set up a system to use it as a proxy for our network at home to use but would frequently redoing that system so we didn't have internet for sometimes days. It wasn't a good time. Took years to use Linux again.
My first Linux install was Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy. Got those wobbly windows going and felt like a fucking king.
OpenSuse sometime around '07
It didn't click, ended up moving to Ubuntu almost immediately. A few years later I moved to Fedora. Circa 2020 I dove into Archlinux and managed that for a couple years. Nowadays as I'm learning server stuff I've switched to Mint.
Gentoo, sometime in the early 00's
Slackware 3.1.
Red Hat, before the enterprise stuff, back in 1999. Installed from a CD found in a book from the library
I've got a Red Hat from '99!
Found in grandpa's garage.
Nice! The one I found looked like this. I remember picking it up because I thought the logo looked cool. I think it was 5.2 though
Mint cinnamon
Mklinux on my powermac G3
Ubuntu -- the one with the Nelson Mandela video and the picture of people holding hands in a circle.
Whatever version of Red Hat there was in 1999. 6 point something if memory serves.
I was running Quake 3 servers a few PCs.
I started with Mandrake 6 when the there were lots of 9's or 0's in the year
Then bounced from Slackware/opensuse/Red Hat/Debian/Gentoo/BSD
Now running Kde Neon and MacOS (Debian and BSD as server OSs)
Fedora
Yggdrasil In the mid 90s.
Red Hat 8.0, the Linux Starter 2003 double cd edition. From there I tried my first Ubuntu when they where still sending out free cd's which was version 6.06 LTS. After that I dabbled a bit jumping from distro to distro to try out different flavors, tinkering a bit for fun and even tried to build my own with Arch. All the while keeping my Windows (XP, 7, 10) daily driver as my main rig. Finally switched over to Pop_OS! a few years ago as my daily for work. I've been thinking about switching over my gaming rig to a Linux distro but haven't figured out which one is the best one and requires the least amount of tinkering.
Void linux
am a simple noob who started with Mint, and remain on Mint on my main gaming machine.
i have fun distro-hopping on my other old, cheap laptops though
my first 'distro' was slackware, on floppy disks. then debian or a flavour of, mainly, ever since. i've never really strayed too far from debian and apt over the years but i have tried most everything.
Ubuntu was my first when I started poking around with it. Not sure which version, but it was during the Unity era. Pop!_OS was the one I started using when I switched full time. I'm still using it on my main computer, but I'm also using Fedora, Ubuntu, NixOS, and Mint on other devices because I like variety!
Mandrake. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. But I did get it installed.
Ubuntu sometime around 2010. It definitely wasn't what I was looking for so I didn't try another distro until 3 years ago. Linux Mint's working well for me but I'm curious about Bazzite.
Slackware96 from Walnut Creek purchased at Staples back when software came in boxes with manuals. Netscape Navigator 3.0 anyone?
I think it was Slackware sometime in the early 2000s
Arch Linux, on an old Compaq pizza box server when I was 16. It took me 3 months to install Arch because there was a DIP switch on the motherboard that somehow prevented you from updating the MBR or some shit.
I basically never used it and didn't touch Linux again until 7 years later, when I used SLES 11 SP2 at a job.
Mandrake 2003. Followed by Ubuntu server 5.10 in 2005.
Switched to Debian in 2020, been on Debian since.
Knoppix. I didn't see it listed yet so I had to chime in.
I saw it and was confused that computers could run something that wasn't Windows and wasn't Mac. Then I was handed a Knoppix LiveCD and suddenly MY computer was Linux. Absolutely blew my mind.
I then explored Mandrake (now Mandrivia?) for a while but it never really stuck.
A few years later Ubuntu was handing out LivdCDs to everyone running Warty Warthog and soon after window managers started to use Beryl (?) which let you have a fancy cube desktop. Absolutely pointless but that's how it all started.
Installed Ubuntu back at 2012 on my Surface. Since then, I’ve hopped to CentOS, OpenSUSE, and Fedora. For now I’ve settled on Arch Linux!
Ubuntu in the mid 2000s, but it's PopOS that made me a fulltimer ~2 years ago. I don't use it anymore but I'll always be thankful for it.
Ubuntu 8.10 in early 2009, after Windows Vista otherwise bricked my laptop. I've distro-hopped on a few occasions but most of my 16 years of Linux have been on Ubuntu. That said, I moved away from Ubuntu after a failed upgrade to 22.04 LTS, to OpenSUSE and then to KDE Neon, now I'm on Nobara and couldn't be happier.
Ubuntu > Mint > Manjaro > Arch > PopOS > Debian
(History, not ranking [Debian wins])
Someone installed Fedora for me somewhere around 2006, then I switched between Ubuntu and Windows until permanently settling for Ubuntu a couple of years ago. But I'm thinking of switching to Debian..
For me it was elementary OS. Dual-booted with Windows back in 2015/2016. Maybe 1 year later, I installed Linux Mint Cinnamon and gradually used it more than Windows. Now I am using EndeavourOS XFCE and only using Windows virtually... when I am bored or need to use Adobe Lightroom Classic.