Red Hat, back when that was a distro. It was a long time ago now and my toying with it didn't last long; and began an obsession with hardware RAID…
this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2025
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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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Ubuntu 6.06 I always come back to Arch now-a-days.
Deepin in 2019 or so. Yeah don't ask...
@midtsveen if I remember correctly, I think it must have been Ubuntu 12.04
My first steps into the Linux world - it's incredible to see how far the Linux desktop has come since. I've got a laptop that runs exclusively Zorin OS and I love it!
Knoppix on live cd which I installed later on hdd but a few days later switched to Mandrake, I think it was... 2001? Good times, good times. There has been a lot of distrohopping since then.
Red Hat Linux, about 2002 from a CD I got from somewhere.
CentOS
Red Hat 5.0 "Hurricane" from 1997. I still have the CD.
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.
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
Debian 💖
Debian 🥔
Yggdrasil in 1998 or so.
OpenSuSE that came with the Linux magazine
It was DSLinux, Linux for the Nintendo DS. I tried it while hacking with the DS just to try that "Linux" everyone was talking about. I installed Ubuntu on my PC short after it.
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I guess Ubuntu when I tried to make a minecraft server a couple of years ago. I first started actually using Linux as my desktop with bazzite.
I started with Lubuntu, because of Minecraft. My PC was so slow that even Minecraft had improved performance, compared to it running on Win 10.
Mandrake -> Whatever came on the Linux Magazine CD -> Backtrack -> Arch
I bought one of those Guide to Linux books back in like 2008 that came with an Ubuntu install disc. Installed it on an old family PC but I didn't really know what I was doing so I didn't get far.
Then in college I used Mint on my desktop and Peppermint on my Acer Aspire netbook. Around graduation I bought a Chromebook and ran Xubuntu in Crouton.
Went a few years without Linux and recently dual-booted with Pop OS on my gaming PC. Feels good.
I first got to try Kali Linux while getting my degree.
Still shopping for one when I make the switch. Mint looked pretty user friendly.
I am not a computer unfortunately, only a ungabunga caveman
Gentoo, sometime in the early 00's
BackTrack 5 because I was too poor to pay for my own Wi-Fi back then, so I had to become creative heheh
Turbo Linux in the late 90s. It didn't go well.
Later I gave Redhat a shot - 5.0 or 5.1, I forget. Stayed with RH and now Fedora.
Some random shitty distribution for netbooks.
Then Ubuntu 11.04 and I have very fond memories of it. But now Ubuntu sucks.
Using Debian 13 with KDE currently.
I remember 11.04 was it when they introduce the unity de and sidebar with Amazon integration?
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Installed Ubuntu back at 2012 on my Surface. Since then, I’ve hopped to CentOS, OpenSUSE, and Fedora. For now I’ve settled on Arch Linux!
I inherited a Sony Vaio in 2009 which was really slow with windows, but unsurprisingly was ok once I swapped that out for Ubuntu 9.04. Took me a while to get the brightness up as the buttons didn't respond, but I kept that machine running for 7 years, the HDD controller died in the end so it stopped detecting any HDD.
My first was Ubuntu in a VM because everyone recommended it, I distro hopped in VMs until I just ended up using Mint in a VM almost exclusively. It was when I complained to someone about the issues with the VM when locking the laptop and they asked me “Why not just run that system as-is?” that I installed it for real.
I've also used Manjaro for half a year, a very minimal Arch+i3 install (without the install script because I wanted the “real experience”) for about 1.5 year, and dual booted Bazzite and Mint on my gaming PC for a year (it's just Mint now), all the while trying out other distros big and small on older hardware or in VMs.
I don't feel I've found “the one”, but somehow I keep coming back to Mint... Although, perhaps NixOS is it... Who knows?
My first Linux install was Slackware sometime in the late 90's. I didn't really use it though, as I never managed to get it working with my dial-up Internet. Stupid winmodems.
The first distribution I actually used was Mandrake. Others I've used since then include Suse, Ubuntu, Debian, Mint, Manjaro, and EndeavourOS. I've landed on using Manjaro on both my main desktop and laptop, though I have secondary machines running Debian, Slackware, Ubuntu, and EndeavourOS.
Lycoris in 2002. It sucked. I think I tried it because it was pushed towards newbies. I tried Mandrake with KDE not long after and that is when I really became a Linux fan.
Way back: Ubuntu live CD. More recent history: Pop!_OS > Zorin OS > Fedora.
Happily been running Fedora for like 2 years now.