Slackware. About 1994 or so.

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 🤘

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.

My first distro was Suse Linux 8.1. I had to buy the box as downloading was not an option with my dial-up connection back then. However, the first distro that I fell in love with was Fedora Core. The original one. I bought the book which had the DVD with the full installation. I was hooked. That was more than 20 years ago.

Gentoo. I figured I could learn much more that way. It was true. The Wiki was excellent. Still is as far as I know.

For me it was Ubuntu on a laptop in early 2000 my family was going to trash because it had viruses on it.

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.

Damn small Linux. Not really "installed" of course, but was fun to play around with.

Red Hat Linux 6.0, back in 1999. It was one of the first distributions to include GNOME as the default desktop environment.

It was probably Red Hat, late '90s.

Ubuntu Late 2000’s. I wanted it because of the CUBE. But left because the only game which worked was TF2.

There are no edgy teenagers here?

Kali Linux to be an elite hax00r

Then Linux mint and now Ubuntu.

Mandrake linux on 2001

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.

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.

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.

Ubuntu

Ubuntu 8.04. Was still in elementary school at the time.

I thought the themes were really cool, especially the compiz effects.

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.

Slackware.

What was the first ever distro you installed and used?

Slackware with some version of FVWM. Installed from a couple dozens floppies. (yes, I am that old :-( )

What made you choose your first distro diving into the world of Linux?

It is the only one available for download at the time as floppies.

Slackware in 1998, installed from DOS with a series of diskettes. Then Debian, Red Hat Linux (not Enterprise!)... and so on.

Ubuntu 9.04, because of WUBI (anyone remember that?). Unstable as hell, but allowed you to run a near bare metal Linux install without the hassle of setting up dual-booting and a separate partition. Liked Ubuntu it so much that I soon replaced Windows completely. Currently running Debian, so I haven't strayed far from the family.

I think it was Mandrake Linux for me.
It no longer exists though. ...I guess I'm old.

Caldera (probably around 1999).

I kept hearing mutahar (someordinarygamers) talk about virtual machines and eventually i managed to get a laptop so i tried making one and Ubuntu was my pick (cus he recommended it for noobs), i hardly knew anything ab linux then but i figured a vm would be the perfect chance to try it :) . Later on when i first decided i wanted to try rawdogging linux it was cus my friend had an old laptop he never used so i asked if i could have it and he didnt mind. The thing was so slow the start menu (the thing u open when u press the windows button) literally took minutes to open. So i eventually checked its specs and downloaded a few distros trying them out and settled on mx linux cus it seemed to tick the most amount of boxes for me :3 (also i got around downloading linux on my main device later on, been using fedora on it.)

Void. I was so excited when I booted into TTY. A blank canvas like never before.

Either Slackware or Red Hat Linux 5, can't remember. I do remember that when I first installed RH5 I used "Hick" for my language.

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.

Relatively new full-time Linux user here. My first experience of using Linux was Knoppix. I had it on cd-rom to troubleshoot Windows, got into media servers and xbmc, so had a few OpenElec machines. Now have Mint as a daily driver.

Knoppix 3.3, then Mandrake 10.1.

Slackware. Installed from 3.5" floppy disk.

Ubuntu. Now on Linux Mint XFCE

DiLinux. You drop a bunch of files in a fat16 folder, and run a chainloader that chestbursts out of DOS. It used the umsdos filesystem, which was a short-lived thing that lived on FAT and scribed all of the other needed fs features into bonus hidden files.

Red Hat back in the 1990s. I had to buy it from a local stationary shop because being in a small, isolated country and the internet being in it's infancy, it was all I could find. Came with a manual bigger than a phone book and cost about the equivalent to these days $200.

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

Slackware

Debian I think? Probably Debian Wheezy.

Edit: All thanks to my college professor.

My first ever Linux experience was with the crouton project on a Chromebook in school (Ubuntu 16.04). A buddy of mine figured it out and we all wanted to play Minecraft during class. Thing is, I ended up enjoying tinkering with the OS as much as I did playing Minecraft… so now I’m stuck trying to learn NixOS.