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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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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?
Slackware, of course, but when Debian was first released two years later I obviously switched (and it's been Debian since then).
OpenSuse sometime around '07
It didn't click, ended up moving to Ubuntu almost immediately. A few years later I moved to Fedora. Circa 2020 I dove into Archlinux and managed that for a couple years. Nowadays as I'm learning server stuff I've switched to Mint.
Mandrake 9
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!
My first was Slackware in the 90s after a friend introduced it to me. He set up a system to use it as a proxy for our network at home to use but would frequently redoing that system so we didn't have internet for sometimes days. It wasn't a good time. Took years to use Linux again.
In the early 90’s I downloaded Slackware to floppy disks. It took me several days to make them. Slackware holds a special place in my heart.
To this day I still use Linux full time. Arch is my go to, but I like and recommend Endeavor often.
Ubuntu had a thing for a while where they would send you a CD of you asked for it. Friend of mine from school gave me one.
Ubuntu 6.06 I always come back to Arch now-a-days.
Sometime in maybe 2021-22 I messed up something on a shitty laptop of mine at the time. Changed something on win10 and was trying to fix it to get admin privileges back on the single account on there. Some website recommended flashing Ubuntu onto a thumb drive and entering some commands on the live boot. Didn't work out and I didn't wanna go through with a fresh win10 install for close to, if not, $100 for everything. Ended up with Ubuntu 20.04 installed because I wanted to use that laptop.
I've since tried many and currently have MX on a better laptop. At some point I'm gonna try to either find something new I can learn so that way by October I can make my desktop have a priority Linux boot with an internet disconnected win10 partition, or just go with Mint or MX. Definitely got a small list of distros I might wanna try, so we'll see.
Ubuntu -- the one with the Nelson Mandela video and the picture of people holding hands in a circle.
Slackware 3.1.
Ubuntu all the way! :) Before I learned there were other ones, then wound up back on Mint again after a trip around the houses. :)
Mint cinnamon
Void linux
Mandriva Linux, then RHEL, the Debian and fedora.
My first Linux install was Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy. Got those wobbly windows going and felt like a fucking king.
I first got to try Kali Linux while getting my degree.
Mandrake 6.0 in 1998. The kernel was still 2.2, and KDE 1.1.1.
Redhat, in 1997. A group at my college was burning CDs and giving them away, along with some "extra" goodies like whatever version of Enlightenment was new at the time, I remember being amazed by that. Or maybe it was just some E themes, don't remember exactly. I think Redhat still came with FVWM95 and maybe OpenStep. I spent so many hours editing those damned Xfree86 configs just to get basic VGA graphics to work.
Still shopping for one when I make the switch. Mint looked pretty user friendly.
I am not a computer unfortunately, only a ungabunga caveman
Fedora
Mandrake. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. But I did get it installed.
old red hat, way back then. i found a CD, was bored and tried to install it on the family computer, but was never able to actually get it working all the way. it wasnt until ubuntu came along that linux "just worked" for me.
debian on servers since i started using it for work, ofc.
Whatever version of Red Hat there was in 1999. 6 point something if memory serves.
I was running Quake 3 servers a few PCs.
Yggdrasil In the mid 90s.
Raspbian (modified Debian Jesse) on a raspberry pi 2B (which I am still using over a decade later to host some discord bots). Also now using Debian 1Bookworm on an old optiplex as a media server.
Red Hat 8.0, the Linux Starter 2003 double cd edition. From there I tried my first Ubuntu when they where still sending out free cd's which was version 6.06 LTS. After that I dabbled a bit jumping from distro to distro to try out different flavors, tinkering a bit for fun and even tried to build my own with Arch. All the while keeping my Windows (XP, 7, 10) daily driver as my main rig. Finally switched over to Pop_OS! a few years ago as my daily for work. I've been thinking about switching over my gaming rig to a Linux distro but haven't figured out which one is the best one and requires the least amount of tinkering.
Mandrake 2003. Followed by Ubuntu server 5.10 in 2005.
Switched to Debian in 2020, been on Debian since.
Ubuntu 8.10 in early 2009, after Windows Vista otherwise bricked my laptop. I've distro-hopped on a few occasions but most of my 16 years of Linux have been on Ubuntu. That said, I moved away from Ubuntu after a failed upgrade to 22.04 LTS, to OpenSUSE and then to KDE Neon, now I'm on Nobara and couldn't be happier.
I think it was Slackware sometime in the early 2000s
Welcome to Lemmy stranger.
Slackware back in the early 90s on a Compaq 386/SX20 💾
Also Slackware!
But I skipped from my 286 to a Pentium 133 (then went a bit backwards to a 486 dx100, then ahead to some cyrix and AMD).
It was such a cool time for CPUs. Going up a generation was like getting a supercomputer. And Intel had those cartridge CPUs…
Such a wild time... I started building PCs for people (even my gym teacher), it was so fun - and yeah, such a huge ju.p e very time!
Now I have the same build for nearly 15 years with upgrades along the way, and my servers are all decom'd t/m/m PCs.
Well shit you got me beat I ran Slackware from 3.5 disks in the 90s on a 486dx2. I sent away for those disks to be mailed to me. I even did something crazy with that machine I had lots of ram so I sent them off to a company to combine them together. I want to say it 8 or 16 megabytes. Bit I can't remember now.
That’s great, I didn’t even know that was a service you could get. I remember being really disappointed when I realized that a SIMM would not actually fit in one of my 386s ISA slots 😅
Arch Linux, on an old Compaq pizza box server when I was 16. It took me 3 months to install Arch because there was a DIP switch on the motherboard that somehow prevented you from updating the MBR or some shit.
I basically never used it and didn't touch Linux again until 7 years later, when I used SLES 11 SP2 at a job.
Knoppix. I didn't see it listed yet so I had to chime in.
I saw it and was confused that computers could run something that wasn't Windows and wasn't Mac. Then I was handed a Knoppix LiveCD and suddenly MY computer was Linux. Absolutely blew my mind.
I then explored Mandrake (now Mandrivia?) for a while but it never really stuck.
A few years later Ubuntu was handing out LivdCDs to everyone running Warty Warthog and soon after window managers started to use Beryl (?) which let you have a fancy cube desktop. Absolutely pointless but that's how it all started.
If I remember correctly I had the same start: tested Knoppix, tried Mandrake for a short time, then Ubuntu which I used for several years until Gnome 3 when I switched to Xubuntu for several years, but when snap happened I tried Debian, then Mint for a while, but I'm now trying MX.
For me it was elementary OS. Dual-booted with Windows back in 2015/2016. Maybe 1 year later, I installed Linux Mint Cinnamon and gradually used it more than Windows. Now I am using EndeavourOS XFCE and only using Windows virtually... when I am bored or need to use Adobe Lightroom Classic.
my first 'distro' was slackware, on floppy disks. then debian or a flavour of, mainly, ever since. i've never really strayed too far from debian and apt over the years but i have tried most everything.
Someone installed Fedora for me somewhere around 2006, then I switched between Ubuntu and Windows until permanently settling for Ubuntu a couple of years ago. But I'm thinking of switching to Debian..
I started with Mandrake 6 when the there were lots of 9's or 0's in the year
Then bounced from Slackware/opensuse/Red Hat/Debian/Gentoo/BSD
Now running Kde Neon and MacOS (Debian and BSD as server OSs)
Red Hat, before the enterprise stuff, back in 1999. Installed from a CD found in a book from the library
I've got a Red Hat from '99!
Found in grandpa's garage.
Nice! The one I found looked like this. I remember picking it up because I thought the logo looked cool. I think it was 5.2 though
If just using the Live CD counts, Lubuntu 12.04, to copy files off a broken Windows machine
Then Ubuntu, followed by Deepin (looked cool), UbuntuDDE, Arch, Xubuntu, and finally settled on Debian in 2022.