Linux

Technically Raspbian Jessie, I think- I was gifted a Pi 3 in ~2016 and fiddled around with it for a while. I also made some cursed choices, at one point running Windows 10 IoT Core on that thing... though luckily not for long.

In 2017 or so, I started toying around with Ubuntu in VMs. It wasn’t really until 2020 or so that I started trying other distros; Debian Buster was probably the first non-Ubuntu distro I’d tried (excluding RPi stuff), and I mostly stucked to Debian besides one Arch install.

At a certain point in 2022, I found myself using Unix tools so much I was starting to wonder if I should just use Linux instead of Windows. It was at this time that I tried NixOS in a VM for the first time and thought, “Wow, this is cool… I’m sticking with Debian, though.”

Around that time, I threw Debian Testing (then Bookworm) on a second 256GB drive, ostensibly as a “test run” for daily driving Linux, and by “test run”, I mean I de facto quit using Windows; a few months later, I opted to use dd and copy that “test install” over my Windows install on my bigger 1TB drive (of course with sufficient backups so I could copy my Windows files over). That install is still the one I use on my desktop today and has just transitioned into Debian Testing/Forky*

*A name I quite honestly hate, mostly due to the fact that ~~Forky represents everything wrong with America today~~ the Forky Asks a Question shorts beat out Steven Universe Future for an animation Emmy, though honestly, I don’t know else what I was expecting to happen.

Fedora Core 6. Package manager kept failing so I couldn't update or install software. So I tried Ubuntu 7.04. That one worked. Had a bunch of animations and stuff that made windows xp look like a child's toy. Been using Linux as my daily ever since

Slackware on a whole lot of lettered floppy disks.

BeOS ;)

I know, not Linux. But it was my first OS other than the one that came pre-installed.

Can't remember exactly which was my very first Linux distro but probably Knoppix or another early live one.

My first "wipe Windows and install on bare metal" was PC-BSD. I know, again, not Linux.

And again, can't remember exactly the very first "wipe Windows and install on bare metal" Linux, probably Puppy or Ubuntu.

Tried Ubuntu 8.04 when it was still new. Said egh, that's cool, and moved on, until around 2015 I've installed Mint on more permanent basis, got frustrated with it a week later, and figured out Arch instead

Mandrake 9.2 (before the Mandriva rebranding)

Linux Mint

... or maybe it was Ubuntu, but it didn't last long so I don't really count it. Linux Mint stuck for a number of years.

Debian because that was the one I had read most about. Then I tried many other distros, some for years, until now when I am once again a Debian user...

Slackware. In 1993.

Suse 5 or 6. I think. Throw some Debian in there around that same time frame.

My first "test" was Conectiva. I lasted a few days with it, then ditched it. (I think this was in 2002? Conectiva would eventually merge with Mandrake.)

Then a few years later I went for Kurumin. It was a local Knoppix derivative, focusing on ease of use. Eventually Ubuntu became popular enough that Kurumin's maintainer saw no reason to continue the project.

Red Hat for a few years and then Debian. Never had any reason to move from Debian.

It was Ubuntu. Can't remember which version but at the time they would mail you a cd if you requested one.

Debian. They mailed me the install media.

Slackware, to get away from the pink boys! Also there were only two or three distributions at the time.
Too many to remember since then.

(Hail Eris!)

Tried ubunto with mint about 10 years back. My first actual daily driver was endeavoros about 1.5 years ago and it has stuck!

Slackware

Ubuntu 12.04 was my starting point. Made my laptop feel like a brand new device compared to Windows 7...

EDIT: Who downvotes every single comment on this thread? I mean it's perfectly okay to dislike Linux but that's petty and dumb.

I don't really remember, I think Ubuntu? My girlfriend installed it for me in 2010 but I went back to Windows after a year or two. I think I started messing with Linux again around 2013 and have been on (K)Ubuntu for a while before eventually trying Arch. I'm on Endeavor now.

Most of my servers are Debian

Damn, how long did you stick with Knoppix?

I had two firsts—I messed around with Ubuntu around high school or so, but I don't count that because I was only curious and had no intention to actually try and use it for any decent stretch of time.

Second, which I consider the "true first", was Fedora, and man was it dope. It's the distro that made me realize Linux is a lot more accessible than I had thought.

It was Fedora. Most of the recommendations for beginners at the time were for Ubuntu or derivatives and I was being contrary just because I could.

It was probably Ubuntu Hoary Hedgehog, though it didn't stick. I tried other versions of Ubuntu and even gentoo again over the following years, but none of them would stick. I would eventually tinker with something I couldn't repair, and rather than re-installing and starting again, I'd just return to windows.

Linux finally stuck for me last year, and Linux (Arch and then CachyOS) has been my full time OS for about the last 18 months

Ubuntu 18.04 (2018) -> Manjaro (2019-2021)-> Arch (2021-2022) ->EndeavourOS (2022-present on my desktop) ->NixOS (2024-present on my laptop)

SuSE 1992 (1995?) (don't remember the exact number, but the year was on the accompanying paper manual), on some 1.3.xx Kernel, I think. Good times.

My first ever distro was Xubuntu. (I did install Lubuntu before it, but found it too "ugly" so switched to Xubuntu after about 30 mins.)

I was still in high school, around 2014-15. My pc was getting old, and I read online that Linux can make your pc run faster. So, I decided to give it a try. I also read online that Xubuntu (and Lubuntu) is among the lightest of distros, so decided to install that. It was worthwhile, to say the least.

I currently use mostly EndeavourOS and AlmaLinux for my personal machines, depending on the type of the device. I have installed Fedora on my sister's laptop, and Debian Stable on my parents' PC, so I have to maintain those as well. Also, I have a few Pi zero2s for various things, so I use PiOS (or whatever it's called these days) from time to time.

Raspbian Bullseye ARM32 -> Ubuntu 18.04/22.04 LTS -> Kubtuntu 22.04/24.04/25.04 (--minimal-install to avoid snap)

ubuntu because it was marketed as the distro newcomers should choose.

Nowadays you can't go wrong with one of the big ones but fedora with ublue has the first mover advantage

Its either Ubuntu or Debian I cant remember

Red hat 2.0

Xandros baby! But I was too young to understand what I was doing. I had one single mp3 file that I played over and over, and chatting with my friends on MSN via Pidgin. It didn't last long, but I remember it fondly

Slackware.

That was 25+ years ago. So don't judge me.

Corel Linux. It didn’t last long because it didn’t play my games.

Red Hat Linux 7.3 (2002)

Tried it to install a few months ago on 86Box and couldn't figure it out to setup network card.
Today everything is mostly plug & play, back then was a pain to setup graphical server, network

RedHat 6.

It came on a CD on the cover of a massive tome titled RedHat Linux 6 Unleashed.

I dipped my toe with Fedora, but that didn’t last. My real commitment with Linux started with Ubuntu.

mandrake was my first. Good memories

Damn Small Linux (Knoppix-based) which was the gateway drug to Fedora Core 4 on an old Pentium III that was lying arouind.

Debian Woody > SuSE > gentoo

Still running gentoo on my main desktop and tumbleweed on my htpc

RedHat6.

It came on a CD on the cover of a massive tome titled RedHat Linux 6 Unleashed.

RedHat 5.1. Man I'm old.

I also still have a Slackware 3.0 CDROM lying around. Which I actually liked back in the day.

I had a machine with multiple OSes chosen at startup with OS/2 Boot Manager, including OS/2 Warp, Windows NT Workstation 4, and Redhat 5.0 which came on a CDROM labeled Pink Tie 5.0. (It was late '90s I guess. I used MSDOS before that. And a Commodore 64 before that) I believe I put a mail server on it (the Redhat partition) while I was still on dial-up (128K ISDN). The mails waited somewhere until I got online and signalled to send them to me. But then upgraded it to DSL. I was still running Redhat 7.3 with my mail server until 2006, even though Redhat 9 and Fedora were out by then. In 2006, I shut it down and bought a Windows 98 laptop to travel around Central America for a year. The Guatemalans laughed at my Windows 98 laptop--they were running Vista. When I got back to the US in 2007, and broke the laptop screen, oops, I bought a $300 desktop PC that had Lindows installed.