Linux

Mandrake -> Whatever came on the Linux Magazine CD -> Backtrack -> Arch

Deepin in 2019 or so. Yeah don't ask...

Yellow Dog Linux ~2004 or so

My first Linux install was Slackware sometime in the late 90's. I didn't really use it though, as I never managed to get it working with my dial-up Internet. Stupid winmodems.

The first distribution I actually used was Mandrake. Others I've used since then include Suse, Ubuntu, Debian, Mint, Manjaro, and EndeavourOS. I've landed on using Manjaro on both my main desktop and laptop, though I have secondary machines running Debian, Slackware, Ubuntu, and EndeavourOS.

Mandriva. Yes, old and no longer exist. Forst distro i started to to use permantly on desktop is Fedora. The server has always been Ubuntu since the Mandriva time when I first learned about Linux. I think 2005. CS server etc. Desktop was 2024 when MS screwed up Windows too much

I inherited a Sony Vaio in 2009 which was really slow with windows, but unsurprisingly was ok once I swapped that out for Ubuntu 9.04. Took me a while to get the brightness up as the buttons didn't respond, but I kept that machine running for 7 years, the HDD controller died in the end so it stopped detecting any HDD.

Turbo Linux in the late 90s. It didn't go well.

Later I gave Redhat a shot - 5.0 or 5.1, I forget. Stayed with RH and now Fedora.

Ubuntu back in the Gnome 2 days.

Red Hat Linux, about 2002 from a CD I got from somewhere.

CentOS

Slackware in the early mid-nineties. But of course there was other Unix variants before that. And what was it called, OS/2 or something like that?

Red Hat, back when that was a distro. It was a long time ago now and my toying with it didn't last long; and began an obsession with hardware RAID…

Slackware in 1996(?), then SuSE when they came up.
I then tried a bit every once in a while, but really never got fully comfortable with it on a desktop.
A few weeks ago I bought a new Desktop PC, which is now running with the Arch-fork #endeavouros and I really love it.

@midtsveen

I can't remember if it was MKLinux or Yellow Dog, either one of these around '97~99. At the time I was also playing with BeOS and NetBSD.

redhat 5.5

Ubuntu (because I have seen it on laptops in shops), Debian (because I found out that Ubuntu is based on Debian, is a community distro instead of a company distro), OpenSuse (I wanted to try something different to apt, it looked different), Zorin (because I loved the custom desktop environments), Mint (because a software I needed didn't work on Zorin, and because Cinnamon DE was very friendly), Trisquel (because it's 100%, recommended by FSF). I also tested other distros in VM's (Steam, Guix System, Pure OS, Dragora, Dynebolic, Alpine, Slackware and that's all I remember). A really beautiful journey!

I think Ubuntu 10.04 or whatever mint version around then

I started using Linux this year. I first tried out Debian, but then switched to mint. Has been very happy with mint every since, so I don't think I will switch again in the near future.

Lubuntu — what a horrible experience (back then)! Now I'm happy with openSUSE Tumbleweed, Void Linux, and Nobara (for my wanna-be gaming PC, lol; trying to get just enough frames for CS2). Every once-and-a-while (I feel like hyphenating that), I do a fresh install, just to get rid of the cruft. Nowadays that makes me wonder if I should be switching to immutable...

Ubuntu, installed on a 256 gb flash drive as an experiment back in 2020. My first daily driver distro was Mint last year, then KDE Neon, and finally Kubuntu today

Distro doesn't matter to me anymore, I just like the Plasma DE and will use anything that uses it. Eventually I'm gonna have to try Arch with it and make my own Steam machine

What's the wallpaper?

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 guess it was suse or red hat somewhen end of 90s or beginning of 2000. Anyhow I didn't like KDE back in the days and haven't touched it since. Although the screenshots I've seen of the latest kde looked kind of good. But I'm mostly running arch or manjaro today and prefer gnome or some tiling manager like herbstluftwm.

scientific linux. I failed to get most things running and switched to ubuntu. this was about 10 years ago

Red Flag Linux 3.0,
taking the RedNote route decades before it was cool,
but did not get much further than the installation screen,

After that it was Ubuntu -> Mint -> Arch -> Manjaro.

debian

openSUSE

Ubuntu. For Work purpose in 2020 as a development VM.

Since then i moved privately to Zorin and now to Nobara. At Work it still is Ubuntu for me, but hopefully i will soon change positions and can shelve that stuff.

Started in 2022 on Kubuntu, moved to Fedora in October 2022, switched back to the Fedora KDE Spin in 2023, and been there since.

Pretty sure tails os :P

I think the first I used was Fedora Core 5, but the first I installed myself was Fedora Core 6.

Debian 1.3, Bo - 1997