What Was Your First Linux Distribution?

[masinick]

Well, I first saw Linux with MandrakeMove. I then had a bit of fun with Knoppix. The first one I had installed was Fedora Core 2 on an old, slow machine (AMD K6-III), but it didn't get used much. I then installed Fedora 8 on my own machine, and that was my first real introduction to Linux: actually using and customising it. Then Fedora 10, 11, 12. Now openSUSE 11.4 installed over the internet (in the future, it will be customised with SUSE Studio before downloading, then I've got the disc, not only a CD to start the instal from the net).

Ah, MandrakeMove! That's an interesting one. I played with that one a bit, too, but by then I had already been using Linux software for seven or eight years. Around the time of MandrakeMove, a couple of other respins were created. A Linux User's Group in Europe - the Netherlands perhaps, created a live respin, and that was pretty good. But an American effort did a really good job with their remake, and eventually built a distribution out of it - PCLinuxOS, and they do a good job with it today. It's been great since Version 11, SUSE has done an excellent job with their community editions of openSUSE, and 11.4 has been the best one yet. Look up "Tumbleweed" and get involved in the rolling release version; I think you will like it too!

[PreferLinux]

Ah, MandrakeMove! That's an interesting one. I played with that one a bit, too, but by then I had already been using Linux software for seven or eight years. Around the time of MandrakeMove, a couple of other respins were created. A Linux User's Group in Europe - the Netherlands perhaps, created a live respin, and that was pretty good. But an American effort did a really good job with their remake, and eventually built a distribution out of it - PCLinuxOS, and they do a good job with it today. It's been great since Version 11, SUSE has done an excellent job with their community editions of openSUSE, and 11.4 has been the best one yet. Look up "Tumbleweed" and get involved in the rolling release version; I think you will like it too!

You know, I wanted a rolling release version, but I could only find out about the odd one I didn't want. It was mainly so that I wouldn't be getting out-of-date software, but when I found opesSUSE 11.4, it had only been released a few days before, so I didn't worry. I'd still like a rolling release, but I don't see much point in it for me, as I wouldn't update it often enough to make it worth while (data caps, bandwidth, and such). Thanks for telling me about it, though.

[robertgordonkey]

Slackware 94

Slackware in 1994, then redhat version 4 or 5?? I liked rpm. Then Debian came along wow! I dropped everything else.

The most stable kernel version ever 1.2.13. I still have it running.
Rob.

[AlbertP]

I started with a book about Fedora, dated 2004, which I got on my birthday in November last year. It had 4 CD's with Fedora Core 2. This old version failed to recognize my SATA harddisk, and after looking on internet I discovered that there was Fedora 14 to download. I installed it (32-bit, did not yet know my CPU was capable of 64), and ran it till January when I switched to Linux Mint 10 64-bit. Now I'm running the RC of Linux Mint 11.

[Danellos]

Hardy Heron

My first Linux distro was Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron.

Still using Ubuntu primarily at the moment. I have experiemented with Fedora and some smaller distros, and it is interesting to see what is going on in those fields.

[stevenaaus]

Slackware in 1994, then redhat version 4 or 5?? I liked rpm. Then Debian came along wow! I dropped everything else.

The most stable kernel version ever 1.2.13. I still have it running.

Laugh. Running ... what exactly ?

But my first experiences sound similar to yours. I used Slackware 3.4 for ages, till finally getting hooked by KDE 1.4 and Redhat and Mandrake. RPM is the best packager for me, and i'm still using Fedora.

[squirrl]

bogus

Bogus Linux - I think it was the product of UNC Chapel Hill CompSci professor(s).

It had an ASCII issue art depicting Bart Simpson.

http://www.cs.unc.edu/~faith/bogus.html

enjoy, I did

[Otus]

Some Knoppix version and then Debian 2.x around 2000-2002.

[oyvind]

RedHat in 1999.

[revellion]

My first linux distro was some ancient RedHat around 5.x i got as a CD from some linux book that my older half-brother gave me back when i was 13-14yrs old. Back then i managed to install it and toy with it a bit but didn't excell in doing much real work or anything too interesting with it.

Then around 15-16 or so i encountered Gentoo due to another half-brother of mine introducing it to me and then i really started to learn something and began to break and bend it till the point i feelt i mastered it more and more, after that came Ubuntu, Debian, and now ArchLinux which is my primary distro at 23yrs of age . Though i still retain knowledge and use of Ubuntu,Debian and Gentoo today but not as everyday distros like ArchLinux is now.