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!
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.
Red Hat Linux 6.0, back in 1999. It was one of the first distributions to include GNOME as the default desktop environment.
+1 for the OG RH gang.
Ubuntu Late 2000’s. I wanted it because of the CUBE. But left because the only game which worked was TF2.
Ubuntu
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.
SLS
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softlanding_Linux_System
I used to have to head into University to use the Sun Lab ( Sun Microsystems workstations ) to download all the floppy images. Took forever.
I would copy the X configuration from the Sun machines so that my 486 at home looked the same. For some reason, that made me feel like my PC was a “real” UNIX workstation.
Knoppix 3.3, then Mandrake 10.1.
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.)
Slackware. Installed from 3.5" floppy disk.
Slackware in 1998, installed from DOS with a series of diskettes. Then Debian, Red Hat Linux (not Enterprise!)… and so on.
Red Hat 5.0, 1998.
Had to get it on a CD as it would have taken 37.5 years to download according to Internet Explorer.
Kernel 2.0.36 represent 🤘
I was RedHat 3 back in 1996. Not even sure how we got the CD but we all passed it around and were amazed.
5.2 for me. I got it as a gift, in a offical retail box. I think the box with manuals is still around somewhere, but I’m not sure where.
Ubuntu sometime around 2008 or 2009 after there was an install disk in a PC magazine. I didn’t use it for long and went back to windows, but I experimented again with Debian a few years later and these days I daily Manjaro.
Slackware 1.2, because it came on a CD in the back of a fat paperback manual I got at Barnes and Noble. It was only later that I learned what a distro is.
Currently on Fedora with a Frankenstein desktop of my own concoction.
Gentoo. I figured I could learn much more that way. It was true. The Wiki was excellent. Still is as far as I know.
Gentoo as a first distro is scary as fuck as a common person. How did you manage?
Any distro that’s well-documented is not a big deal to install and use. Never understood the big deal people used to make (still do sometimes? though I think it’s mostly ironic now) about Arch. I did my first install Arch when I was kinda a dumbass but I just read the wiki (very thorough, btw, still use that wiki nearly daily) and followed the instructions. Especially with Arch, the wiki is so informative it explains the things you don’t know so you understand what you’re doing even though when I first installed Arch I didn’t know what an fstab file was, what the initramfs was, etc. I’ll disclaim that I’ve not installed Gentoo myself, but I hear from people who have installed it that it’s very well documented, so makes sense that newcomers could install and use it if they’re willing to read and learn.
What would you say is a distro that is badly documented? Genuinely curious.
Tbh, as a current Artix user, I think the Artix documentation is lacking. Their full disk encryption installation guide doesn’t have any UEFI instructions and while they have a wiki, it definitely doesn’t cover a lot of the things that differ from systemd, which is the purpose of the Artix Wiki, ie to cover everything from Arch Wiki which needs to be changed without systemd. I get most of my info from the Artix forums. I even used the Arch wiki installation guide for installing Artix instead of Artix Wiki’s installation guide (it’s only like 3 commands that are different, they use basestrap instead of pacstrap and you install a different init system with basestrap, they use fstabgen instead of genfstab, and artix-chroot instead of arch-chroot (that last one should be obvious though)). I still like the distro ofc, otherwise I wouldn’t use it, but I think it’s lacking in good documentation. Maybe that’s just my perspective after being spoiled by the Arch Wiki for so long though lol. I can’t really speak for many distros though, I’ve not daily-driven many
Great. The Wiki explained everything I needed to do to get a working system.
Gentoo is on my to-do list to try out, going to set of a whole weekend to just sit down and enjoy the process of installing it. Have never touched it before, but always heard good things about it, as well as the things you learn along the way. Glad to hear you think so too!
Arch wiki has entered the chat
What was the first ever distro you installed and used?
Slackware with some version of FVWM. Installed from a couple dozens floppies. (yes, I am that old :-( )
What made you choose your first distro diving into the world of Linux?
It is the only one available for download at the time as floppies.
