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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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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~~ slackware 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
I came in just about as Debian Woody was coming out, in 2002. (Main reason I can even date it beyond "Idk, about 20 years ago?").
Tried Mandrake a while after that, often recommended as pretty much the equivalent of Linux Mint at the time in terms of noob friendliness. I did enjoy that but stuck with Debian for my main system for years, though.
I believe it was slackware. it was gifted to teenage me ca 1994, was on the CD of some magazine.
I wanted to try it, so went dual boot. it (or I?) partitioned my 800MB hard disk into a 300MB and an 800MB partition. stupid young me thought this was great and I just gained 300MB. when I noticed date corruption, stupid young me started to copy over important data to the assumed good partition. things didn't end well.
I took a two year break from Linux afterwards 🤣
Ubuntu - > Mint - > Manjaro - > EndeavourOS - > Nobara - > Arch
Those are the main ones, I've tried others too but all of those were my daily for a while
Debian 3.1, but was not successful in getting X to work, but didn’t put a lot of effort into it. Then I got Mandrake running with X, but went back to Windows. On a small computer, I got FreeBSD running as a server but never used it, so that went away again. Knoppix a couple of times to recover data from failed Windows installations.
Yeah, it’s not until recently that I installed Debian 12 on a old work laptop and was very impressed. Now I’m on the fence of having a stable distribution or sumthin with newer packages. I love the philosophy of Debian and the wide usage on servers but Arch is personally also up my alley, however I have not used it at all.
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
This was very similar to the box I had but in my case it was mostly white. And the manual was waaaay bigger. Like almost the size of a phone book. I bought mine in 1999 too. Installed from CD. I bought mine for $110 from a stationary shop (since I lived in a student flat and my flatmates would have probably murdered me if I'd downloaded it over dial up that also had a monthly download limit). Good times lol.
Chrome OS, obviously. jk
xD 😆
Ubuntu at the start of my college years, dabbled with Arch in the senior year. Huge learning experience, but ultimately I went back to Windows because gaming support was nonexistent at the time. Kept the dual boot up and kept it running Arch during the day for coursework, Windows when I was all done.
For the past decade since then I was entirely back on Windows. Aside from an Ubuntu VM for my last job, I didn't really get back into it until the Steam Deck launched a few years ago, and at the start of this year I decided to set up a dual boot again once I got a new full new desktop build. Tried Bazzite, really didn't like how restricted I felt, immediately wiped it and tried out CachyOS instead, and that's my daily driver today.
And just this past week I finally decided got into selfhosting, something I've been eyeballing for ages but never really got around to. Proxmox on the host, Debian VM, pretty standard and works amazingly.
I had Slackware running on a couple of 386 machines with 200MB hard disks. It was impossible to do almost anything as it was all compile from source but I didn't have the disk space to install all the compiler tools and what I was trying to run on them. I was originally going to use them as part of a distributed system for my degree, but in the end I didn't use them and did something different instead.
I used CentOS at work a lot for several years and liked it, but only fully switched form Windows at home 10 years ago and I went to Ubuntu at the time. Installed KDE on it, messed around with i3 and had a great time. I then went hopping and landed on Endeavour OS which I've been really enjoying for many years now and have no intention of moving from. All my servers still run Ubuntu LTS Server as it has been unbelievably solid.
am a simple noob who started with Mint, and remain on Mint on my main gaming machine.
i have fun distro-hopping on my other old, cheap laptops though
It was Slackware... Back in the late 90s. Do not ask me about how kid me managed that, all I recall is endless terminals, kernel panics and eventually getting a desktop through some arcane means I can't remember.
I didn't return to linux for many years after that experience.
I still have the 1996 edition of Slackware Linux Unleashed and the CD in my bookshelf as a reminder.
Slackware, in the 90s, installed from floppy disks. I also used SuSE, Debian and now stick with Fedora.
My first Linux install was Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy. Got those wobbly windows going and felt like a fucking king.
I guess Ubuntu when I tried to make a minecraft server a couple of years ago. I first started actually using Linux as my desktop with bazzite.
I started with Lubuntu, because of Minecraft. My PC was so slow that even Minecraft had improved performance, compared to it running on Win 10.
Ubuntu > Mint > Manjaro > Arch > PopOS > Debian
(History, not ranking [Debian wins])
Mandrake 9
Pop!_OS since January of this year \o/
Raspbian if that counfs
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)
Ubuntu had a thing for a while where they would send you a CD if you asked for it. Friend of mine from school gave me one.
Slackware96 from Walnut Creek purchased at Staples back when software came in boxes with manuals. Netscape Navigator 3.0 anyone?
Ubuntu, the release right before unity was the one I started actually using.
After that I switched to arch for a very long time, and now i'm on nixos.
Casual Deck owner here. Arch Linux is my answer.
Ubuntu in 2009 or so. Booting school computers onto the live DVD felt like hacking. I think around 2016 I installed some spin of Ubuntu on my laptop and used it somewhat regularly. Prior to that it was just random times I felt like using the dual boot function. I mostly used Windows. It took until 2025 for me to switch my desktop to Cachy OS.
SuSE, about 1999, although I didn’t really start ‘getting’ Linux until I tried Slackware a couple of years later. After that I’ve just been bouncing between trusty old Debian and different distros based on it.
Edit: I’ve also tried Gentoo, Arch and Mandrake briefly many years ago.
Started with Soft Landing Systems (SLS). Pre-Slackware. Many hours downloading floppy disk images at school.
Moved to Red Hat (pre-Fedora and pre-RHEL) until I think 7.3 or so and then Mandrake. I did trial runs with many distros over time but none of them really stuck. Fedora for a release or two. Spent a few years on Manjaro for desktop and CentOS for server. Have been on Arch for many years now (or EndeavourOS). Never used Ubuntu really.
Moved to Proxmox for server. Although I never used Debian historically, quite a few of the containers I have on Proxmox now are Debian based as is Proxmox itself.
Lately, I have been using Chimera Linux for desktop though I have an Arch Distrobox on it so I guess I am a bit of a hybrid at this point.
Arch in like 2019 maybe.
I still like Arch, I tried all sorts of distros in VMs, most feel clunky to me.
Tiling manager, GUI file explorer, minimal status bar and I'm set.
For my laptop this is swaywm, swaybar, nautilus.
I also use drun-like programs
I guess Ubuntu? 10 years ago or even more? can't remember... Tried it for a bit but didn't stick at first and went back to Windows until 2020.
Installed my first homelab and selfhosted application on my old spare laptop with Debian (only over command line).
So I gave Linux desktop another try... Ubuntu for a few days => Manjaro for a few days => EndeavourOS !
Got hooked and are now a proud EOS user for about 3 years and never will I look back into Windows !
I'm still in the learning process, but in the long run I will probably switch to bare bone Arch.
SUSE Linux, back in the 1990s. Because you could buy it for cheap, and you got not only the huge stack of floppy disks to install it from, but also a set of thick fat detailed handbooks (these things made from paper full of pictures and letters and glued together, like your grandparents may have had). I spent many nights with them books instead of my wife...
It was a bear to install and terribly complicated to configure back then; at least for me. But in the end, I had a nice server running well for a while.
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.
Debian Slink
Before that, Windows NT, A/UX, Solaris and VAX/VMS.
Before that, Vic 20 and Apple II
Still using Debian every day whilst navigating the perils of MacOS.
Ubuntu, as they used to send free CD packs to distribute. Was fun booting into live CD on computers.
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.
Ubuntu in the mid 2000s, but it's PopOS that made me a fulltimer ~2 years ago. I don't use it anymore but I'll always be thankful for it.
It's hard to remember but it was some version of Mandrake probably in the early 2000's. At the time, they were one of the only distros (along with Red Hat) to offer an installation GUI. As a first time user I found partitioning a hard drive too complex to do on the command line.
I only used Mandrake for a short time before reverting to windows but it wasn't long after that when I came back and then started using Debian. Since then I went back to Windows then to OpenSuSe, then Debian, Kubuntu, Ubuntu, and now Pop!_OS.
Red Hat 7
Red Hat 9 in 2004
