I’m new to #Lemmy and making myself feel at home by posting a bit!

My first Linux distribution was elementary OS in early March 2020. Since then, I’ve tried Manjaro, Arch Linux, Fedora, went back to Manjaro, and since early January 2023, I’ve landed on Debian as my home in the #Linux world.

What was your first Linux distro?

  • encrust9870@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    24 days ago

    I started with Ubuntu back when you could put in your parent’s home address and they sent you free CDs. I’m on Arch (since about 2010), and I can’t change.

    • lagoon8622@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      23 days ago

      Oh yeah well I still boot Bell Labs Unix that I load off of punch cards

      ^^^That’s ^^^awesome ^^^that ^^^you ^^^used ^^^Slackware, ^^^I’m ^^^just ^^^joking

      • martinb@lemmy.sdf.org
        0·
        23 days ago

        Slackware was the shit in the 90’s. I bounced around slack, Debian, and a bunch of other floppy based distros. My first install was onto my Amiga, before I got a new pc. Good times

  • Wilmo Bones@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    23 days ago

    Ubuntu 8.10 in late 2008. while I didn’t use Linux for that long due to a lack of understanding I did come back to it in in a few years to check out I think Ubuntu 10.04 in 2010 or and then Fedora 36 a few years ago and never plan to leave

  • Rodneyck@lemm.ee
    0·
    23 days ago

    Sadly, Ubuntu. I quickly moved on to debian…and ultimately landed with Arch, my true love for many years. I use Arch, btw.

  • polo@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    24 days ago

    Ubuntu, as they used to send free CD packs to distribute. Was fun booting into live CD on computers.

  • r7minty@lemm.ee
    0·
    23 days ago

    The first was about 1995-ish Redhat on school computers, after that was Suse on a 2000s laptop, and currently Mint+Mx on a self-built pc. Hardware support and ease of use has come a long way since then.

  • 🦄🦄🦄@feddit.org
    0·
    23 days ago

    Probably Knoppix on some Laptop my dad brought home at around 2001-2002. Still remember tinkering with it and having no idea what I am doing haha. Good times.

  • 7arakun@lemmy.world
    0·
    23 days ago

    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.

  • hamsda@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    23 days ago

    The first one I saw was Debian 3.1 (Sarge). I was in school and our objective this time was installing debian + getting a working Xorg session. Never heard of Linux before, didn’t get a working Xorg session, but wow man, there’s something other than Windows and MacOS. I couldn’t have imagined.

    The first one I actually used on a desktop (laptop for school, in that case) was Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake).

    I’ve tried oh so many different linux distributions over the years, I probably forgot most of them. Maybe some don’t even exist anymore. My goal was always Arch Linux, having seen it on a schoolmates laptop. I really fell for the “here’s a pretty minimum base, do whatever” thing.

    In the end, I exclusively used Arch from 2020 until this year. Actually using Arch and reading the ArchWiki were probably what taught me most of what I know about linux in general and how things work.

    I’ve been searching for a less DIY-solution which is still up-to-date (especially with kernels and mesa) and I landed on Fedora Workstation, which is what I’m currently using on my work latpop and desktop at home. I do miss some things from Arch, but Fedora has been pretty good to me and I, for the meantime, intend to stay here.

      • hamsda@lemm.ee
        0·
        23 days ago

        Yes it is. Though after using arch for a few years, I miss the abundance of packages.

        If a package wasn’t in the official arch repos, it was probably in the AUR. If you use arch, you don’t need other package managers like homebrew on linux.

  • piranhaconda@mander.xyz
    0·
    23 days ago

    Whatever Ubuntu was available in 2015. I only dabbled in Linux over the past 10 years. More seriously switching over in the last year or so.

    I have Unraid as a server OS (Debian based, running a lot of docker containers and a couple VMs). Debian on my laptop. And Bazzite (fedora based) on my Lenovo Legion Go.

    Still need to swap my gaming PC from windows. May try Bazzite on that as well. I’ve also tried Mint, Manjaro, and Zorin

      • piranhaconda@mander.xyz
        0·
        23 days ago

        Yea I’m running a much leaner Debian on my laptop now. Base OS was very bare, slowly adding only what I need because it’s a 2016 laptop and noticeably slower on some more bloated OSs