What was the first ever distro you installed and used? For me, it was Mint as I seemed like the closest thing to Windows minus all the forced updates and chappy changes.

Currently on Fedora GNOME now but what about you? What made you choose your first distro diving into the world of Linux?

I wanna hear your thoughts!

  • limelight79@lemm.ee
    8·
    9 months ago

    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.

  • the16bitgamer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    9 months ago

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

  • OldFartPhil@lemm.eeEnglish
    3·
    9 months ago

    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.

  • Murdoc@sh.itjust.works
    3·
    9 months ago

    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.

  • bruhSoulz@lemmy.ml
    3·
    9 months ago

    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.)

  • MyNameIsRichard@lemmy.ml
    3·
    9 months ago

    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.

  • ccunix@lemmy.world
    3·
    9 months ago

    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.