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 started on Debian with XFCE. I figured if there were so many distros based on Debian, then I might as well just use that so I’d be able to configure things myself and learn more about how the OS works.
Anyway, you know the section in the Debian wiki called DontBreakDebian? I did not follow that advice. It went poorly. I’ve since learned from my (many) mistakes and have been running Fedora KDE for a while now.
Raspberry Pi OS. Basically Debian for ARM plus some Raspberry Pi specific addons. It got me curious about Linux in general, led me to try dual booting Windows and Ubuntu on my desktop. Then Manjaro, Endeavour, and now just recently ditched my Windows install in favour of Arch. Will never go back if I can help it.
I think the first distribution I tried was Fedora on my PlayStation 3 around 2007. From what I remember, you had to use terminal a lot so I couldn’t do anything with it.
Then a few months later I tried Ubuntu on an old Dell computer from my father’s office.
Dual booted windows and Ubuntu for years until fully switching to Linux around 2021.
Now I’m only using Fedora with a few virtual machines for some specific needs.
It was the only distro I could get my hands on because who would download a distro on dialup. Also there were no CD burners nor USB sticks yet. So whatever your friend had on CD waa the option. I guess the only other possible option would’ve been red hat back in those days.
Seriously, Slackware at that time was wonderfully well planned and optimized, the stack of floppies needed for a fully usable system was remarkably small and downloadable.
After the Mandrake merge with Conectiva - what an awesome distro that was before SuSE beat it to death with UnitedLinux shenanigans! - and the mandriva progression, it still lives on as either Mageia or OpenMandriva; but my favourite of its children is the PCLinuxOS offshoot of Mandrake.
Ubuntu 10.10 on a Dell Latitude D505 with an intel core 2 duo and 512MB RAM running Windows XP. It was a school laptop that i cracked the admin password for and installed virtualbox. It ran like crap!. I knew it wasn’t ubuntu’s fault and later always booted from a nub sized USB that i always had plugged in with persistance. I can’t remember the name of the OS at this moment, but it was made for low-end hardware and was specifically environmentally friendly with a green leaf as its logo.
No, that wasn’t it. I know that for sure because I tried it and was honestly a little bit confused at how it worked and did not use it for any extended period of time.
My first, I’m pretty sure, was Ubuntu but for playing around with.
My first one that I stayed with and kept as an actually OS was PopOS. Haven’t changed since. Works well and does what I need. Can’t wait to see what Cosmic has in store.
As for what made me go to Linux. Windows was cumbersome to program in. Had to use another app to run command lines, putty. Used Linux terminals before and knew that it was easier to run programs from command line so I decided to give the desktop a try. So much better! Ended up keeping Linux because it was faster, more clean, and I was able to accomplish majority of the tasks I used windows for. For the things that don’t work on Linux, I have other devices for.
I started with Crunchbang in its final years. It was a great introduction to Linux, to be honest. It was also a very solid distro, as it was Debian-based.
But, sadly, it eventually folded. It still has a spiritual sequel in BunsenLabs but, in the meantime, I’d moved to Arch (btw).
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