What Was Your First Linux Distribution?

[energyman]

lordmozilla - why are you forcing crap down their throats? Seriously?

just look here and the 'fun' with debian's broken init- scripts:

http://gentooexperimental.org/~patrick/weblog/index.html

[minion]

Uhm my first was redhat linux version 7? I think... My dad then changed to SuSE pro when they stopped the free/cheap version and went to RHEL.

I'm ubuntu, and since i build my dads systems they are ubuntu too, even if he prefers Suse. I win!

My household is much the same, I'm the lit'trate one so I get to choose. The problem with that is whenever there is a problem it's yours. Wasn't it Novell that bought SuSE. . . Where Fedora is still redhat?

Minion

Alaskans for Global Warming!!

[lordmozilla]

My household is much the same, I'm the lit'trate one so I get to choose. The problem with that is whenever there is a problem it's yours. Wasn't it Novell that bought SuSE. . . Where Fedora is still redhat?

Minion

Alaskans for Global Warming!!

Yeah but Opensuse is still very much like suse used to be, than redhat really changed, centos/rhel is available but very different to the old redhat style, and fedora is (well in my opinion) too unstable and cutting edge for my tastes... It's nice to check it out when it's realeased to see upcoming cool features, but i've always found it lacking polish.

And as far as problems go, my dad has to use debian at work so it's ok. He's usually really good at fixing his own problems. He's been annoying me about his ATi card an HDMI support... (his nvidia card broke and i told him to buy this ati one), my mistake, but choosign hardware is always a bit hit and miss

Although i've not really given it that much of a try to be perfectly frank

[minion]

Yeah but Opensuse is still very much like suse used to be, than redhat really changed, centos/rhel is available but very different to the old redhat style, and fedora is (well in my opinion) too unstable and cutting edge for my tastes... It's nice to check it out when it's realeased to see upcoming cool features, but i've always found it lacking polish.

And as far as problems go, my dad has to use debian at work so it's ok. He's usually really good at fixing his own problems. He's been annoying me about his ATi card an HDMI support... (his nvidia card broke and i told him to buy this ati one), my mistake, but choosign hardware is always a bit hit and miss

Although i've not really given it that much of a try to be perfectly frank

Mr Lord

Debian is good and stable once it's setup but it's the setup that takes the time. I've used fedora to teach with and it works well. It installs, does what you tell it to and very seldom crashes. I did an intro class at the local college and we got from only one person knowing what linux was to setting up lamp servers in the one semester. Before we were done all 25 were using it at home. It also translates to the business community with rhel. Hardware is a guess anyway someone said that about 25% goes because of poor quality control,

Head Minion 8*)

[Adarion]

My first Distribution was probably a boxed SuSE 9. I liked it and was impressed by the package managemet but no serious/complete switching was going on. But I already used a lot of system independent software and converted files to free, standardized formats.
Later I spent a few days on a holiday with a friend. And he wanted to install Gentoo. I thought OMG ain't it that one where you have to compile it all? But I was interested and was even more impressed what you cuold do and that it really worked after a few days of configuring and compiling (AMD Duron 800 or something like that).
So I went on with more serious efforts of my W32->Linux migration. But(t) I had no broadband line. Optical fibre in the ground. I was already waiting for about 8 years for some kind of broadband/flat.
So imagine emerging Gentoo with a 56k Modem/64K ISDN connection.
Finally about ... huh 3-4 years ago I had to install a laptop for mom. Went to university (awesome 100Mbit and up connections) and fetched the Gentoo there. Worked.
And since 2007 I got broadband flat. So I emerged world on most of my boxes, let aside the embedded router and my older machines like i233 MMX, i486, 086 and so on. I have some dualboots W32/Gentoo and some Gentoo only.
So I'd say Gentoo really was my first serious attempt on Linux.

Besides I look from time to time at precompiled Distributions or have a look at some BSD, but nothing serious yet, I'm lacking time for more than Gentoo I guess.

[minion]

Adarian - -

I've always thought one of the saddest things was when HP bought out DEC. I had a couple of the old Multias/UDB machines. they had originally been built for NT but since Linus had been given a couple of the bigger machines from DEC through Mad Dog Hall He used those, they were 64 bit machines and even though they were only 166 or 233mhz in the real world they ran twice that. The version of NT that the multias used was shaky so when RH came out with the 64 bit OS it was a happy day.

I know what you mean about compiling, a friend who was in the business of coding ran me through it. That was a help. Then it got to be an addiction to see how small I could get the Kernel and now I've turned lazy and just go with the vanilla Kernel. Beside they keep changing so quickly. And like I said in another post it's easier to run vanilla if it's going into a business unless they really have their stuff down.

I agree with you on AMD but probably for different reasons of a long time ago when they were putting out processors that had basic standards. That was my greatest problem with both apple and windo$e they all wanted to keep it for themselves. Everything had to be proprietary.

Through all this political/economic mess it strikes me that if the government would change to linux along with the schools and the military the cost of software would drop to zero. I mean Ernie Ball (guitar string maker) did it.

By the way "Energyman" up there each distro has it's strong points and weak ones, that's the beauty of linux there are enough flavours that you get a real choice. From Embedded to DSL to SuSE and RedHat and all those between. If you don't like a distro you don't have to use it. If you like most of it and have the ability you can change it or get in contact with the author/maintainer and he might change it. Try that with Windoze of some of the others like Sun or SCO. It's sort of like the problem with our economic mess now. Either top down or bottom up. http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/ca...hedral-bazaar/

minion

Alaskans for Global Warming!!

[rv65]

FC9 is a solid distro. Maybe my dad should wait for FC11 but I suppose updating it to a FC10 respin would be a good idea.

[minion]

FC9 is a solid distro. Maybe my dad should wait for FC11 but I suppose updating it to a FC10 respin would be a good idea.

rv65-

I've noticed, though it may have been something I just missed before, that with x86_64 on fc10 when I "yum" it will sometimes go back and pick up one of the fc9 packages. If there is that kind of interoperability in fc11 as well it would be a good thing and then it wouldn't matter what level of fedora you get. I hope this is a new feature.

Also, I've got servers that are still running on redhat 7, some on Fc4&7 that have been going strong for quite a while. It's not necessary to change just because a new package comes out. A friend has a nameserver that has been running on redhat 3 for a long long time. Debian is good for that too, longevity. Once setup it just keeps running. The trick is not needing to have what is current. getting the real use out of the hardware you buy. I've got an old dual celery(celeron) that's been running since abit came out with the board. Software is never to the point that it is using the full capability of the hardware. I haven't seen it yet in 30+ odd years.

minion

[RagingDragon]

Mandrake 8.1. Gave up on Mandrake after a buggy 9.1 or 9.2, and moved to Slackware until I bought a new computer which required a 2.6 kernel, at which point I switched to Arch. I have Kubuntu on my secondary home computer, and a whole bunch of RHEL & CentOS servers at work.

[Veerappan]

I believe that my first was Mandriva 5.2 (1998), but I had installed an earlier version of Slackware (3.x) and royally messed it up.

The first time I took a serious look at switching from win32->linux was back in college while I worked in an IRIX lab and got involved in the Lunar Linux project. That would've been around 2002 or so.