From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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It was Slackware... Back in the late 90s. Do not ask me about how kid me managed that, all I recall is endless terminals, kernel panics and eventually getting a desktop through some arcane means I can't remember.
I didn't return to linux for many years after that experience.
I still have the 1996 edition of Slackware Linux Unleashed and the CD in my bookshelf as a reminder.
I believe it was slackware. it was gifted to teenage me ca 1994, was on the CD of some magazine.
I wanted to try it, so went dual boot. it (or I?) partitioned my 800MB hard disk into a 300MB and an 800MB partition. stupid young me thought this was great and I just gained 300MB. when I noticed date corruption, stupid young me started to copy over important data to the assumed good partition. things didn't end well.
I took a two year break from Linux afterwards 🤣
Ubuntu, the release right before unity was the one I started actually using.
After that I switched to arch for a very long time, and now i'm on nixos.
Redhat 4.1 back in 97. I even purchased the CD from PC World, seems wild now to buy a CD/DVD of a distro.
First PC I installed it on was a work laptop, had to compile a bunch of kernel modules and then the kernel to get everything working but get everything working I did, Thinkpads being good for Linux even then.
Ubuntu in 2009 or so. Booting school computers onto the live DVD felt like hacking. I think around 2016 I installed some spin of Ubuntu on my laptop and used it somewhat regularly. Prior to that it was just random times I felt like using the dual boot function. I mostly used Windows. It took until 2025 for me to switch my desktop to Cachy OS.
One of the first slackware (so many floppies) on my mighty 486 DX 50. Linux wasn't at 1.0 yet at the time.
Linux (many versions) has been my daily driver ever since, with windows as a gaming backup a lot of the time. I still have it on a single machine in a small partition because of VR :‐/
Arch in like 2019 maybe.
I still like Arch, I tried all sorts of distros in VMs, most feel clunky to me.
Tiling manager, GUI file explorer, minimal status bar and I'm set.
For my laptop this is swaywm, swaybar, nautilus.
I also use drun-like programs
Ubuntu, as they used to send free CD packs to distribute. Was fun booting into live CD on computers.
Raspbian if that counfs
Technically I first experuenced Linux as a very small kid in 2009 in my school computers, but my first time trying Linux for my personal desktip usage was in December 11, 2021, when I first tried Linux Mint. My setup was a very humble, 14 years old, ddr2 board, and I was amazed at how much faster Cinnamon was compared to Windows 10. Since then, I already helped about 5 people to move to Linux too 😁
Welcome to Lemmy stranger.
Slackware back in the early 90s on a Compaq 386/SX20 💾
Pop!_OS since January of this year \o/
It's hard to remember but it was some version of Mandrake probably in the early 2000's. At the time, they were one of the only distros (along with Red Hat) to offer an installation GUI. As a first time user I found partitioning a hard drive too complex to do on the command line.
I only used Mandrake for a short time before reverting to windows but it wasn't long after that when I came back and then started using Debian. Since then I went back to Windows then to OpenSuSe, then Debian, Kubuntu, Ubuntu, and now Pop!_OS.
Red Hat, way back in the 90s - must have been 5.0 IIRC.
Since then I went through Ubuntu and now landed on Fedora.
Mandrake 9
Red Hat 5.0 "Hurricane" from 1997. I still have the CD.
Lubuntu — what a horrible experience (back then)! Now I'm happy with openSUSE Tumbleweed, Void Linux, and Nobara (for my wanna-be gaming PC, lol; trying to get just enough frames for CS2). Every once-and-a-while (I feel like hyphenating that), I do a fresh install, just to get rid of the cruft. Nowadays that makes me wonder if I should be switching to immutable...
SUSE Linux, back in the 1990s. Because you could buy it for cheap, and you got not only the huge stack of floppy disks to install it from, but also a set of thick fat detailed handbooks (these things made from paper full of pictures and letters and glued together, like your grandparents may have had). I spent many nights with them books instead of my wife...
It was a bear to install and terribly complicated to configure back then; at least for me. But in the end, I had a nice server running well for a while.
Slackware in 1998 I think, from a cd that came in a book I bought while in university.
It didn’t stick, but it demystified it and I’ve used a lot of flavours of *nix since then.
I remember not being able to get sound to work at all on my pentium computer.
Mint
I started using Linux this year. I first tried out Debian, but then switched to mint. Has been very happy with mint every since, so I don't think I will switch again in the near future.
Ubuntu 6.06 was my first Linux install. I still remember the pain of ndiswrapper to get Windows WiFi drivers working on Linux.
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.
YES! That was the same distro that was my entry, it came along with the book Linux for dummies. However mine came on a single CD. Must have been the "lite" edition 😄
Started with Soft Landing Systems (SLS). Pre-Slackware. Many hours downloading floppy disk images at school.
Moved to Red Hat (pre-Fedora and pre-RHEL) until I think 7.3 or so and then Mandrake. I did trial runs with many distros over time but none of them really stuck. Fedora for a release or two. Spent a few years on Manjaro for desktop and CentOS for server. Have been on Arch for many years now (or EndeavourOS). Never used Ubuntu really.
Moved to Proxmox for server. Although I never used Debian historically, quite a few of the containers I have on Proxmox now are Debian based as is Proxmox itself.
Lately, I have been using Chimera Linux for desktop though I have an Arch Distrobox on it so I guess I am a bit of a hybrid at this point.
Kali Linux. Because I was a kid who wanted to be a hackerman.
This, but backtrack 5 (the one just before kali). On a laptop that'd take several eternities to brutforce an md5 🤣
My monitor is visible to a public footpath and I honestly am waiting for the day that I get a knock on the door from the cops because Jo Public saw me do a system update
sudo pacman -Syu 💀
Way back: Ubuntu live CD. More recent history: Pop!_OS > Zorin OS > Fedora.
Happily been running Fedora for like 2 years now.
My first Linux install was Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy. Got those wobbly windows going and felt like a fucking king.
BackTrack 5 because I was too poor to pay for my own Wi-Fi back then, so I had to become creative heheh
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.
Slackware, of course, but when Debian was first released two years later I obviously switched (and it's been Debian since then).
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
Ubuntu in about 2007 when my windows desktop crashed. A friend installed it in place. Never looked back
Ubuntu 8.04, Hardy Heron. I miss loving Ubuntu
Same! I remember getting Warcraft 3 to run with wine. Ubuntu used to be exciting...
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.
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)
