RedHat Linux 7.2 (I still have the original box/contents which I bought at Best Buy for $59.99 )
Before that, OS/2
1 Like
kurumin - old scholl
mandriva - old
endeavour - interface
mint - memory
ubuntu - domestic
smart
zorin - domestic premium
core - miminal
cloudlinux - server gui
centos - server
rocky …
others on vms - ( ? )
I got a free cd of linux with an electronics book i don’t remember the distro name
but what i remember is an insaller named yast.It was around 1999 and installed it on my pentium 100mhz
internet was a rare thing those days in my town Tiruppur.It was hard for me to make anything usefull out of it.I shift back to windows 97.
Then In 2005 Got a copy of ubuntu cd played a lot with it and got a bit confident with linux.
And later moved to centos and started to rely on it the same way now i am on rocky.
1 Like
Most likely SUSE linux, I don’t remember any other distros using Yast, although it’s possible some do.
2 Likes
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron)
1 Like
Fedora Core 2
Now, I multiboot between Fedora 
, Ubuntu 
, Devuan 
, openSUSE 
and Rocky 
1 Like
I don’t recall if I had used any Linux at the university or work before that, but at least in home use my first Linux was Mandrake Linux (the predecessor of the Mandriva Linux). I don’t recall which version and when exactly.
(before Linux I had used e.g. HP-UX with VUE somewhat, but it wasn’t a Linux distro but a “real UNIX” running on HP workstations)
However, I wasn’t heavily using it for home use at that time, mainly just dabbling and trying it out. Much later at some point I used Fedora for some time, but I didn’t like it that much as if felt like a buggy beta version of Red Hat (which it was I guess), and when it finally became stable, it became EOL and I had to move to another unstable release.
I think I tried some CentOS version at one point, then went Ubuntu but hated it when they got that shitty Unity user interface, I jumped ship from Ubuntu to Linux Mint (which is basically Ubuntu without any of the downsides and a more familiar user interface (I prefer XFCE for its clean and simple design and low resource requirements)).
In home use, I am currently using both Linux Mint and Rocky Linux side by side (on different laptops/PCs). Oh and Raspberry OS on the RPi4 too. Linux Mint may be more geared or even suitable for home use, but I like how Rocky Linux has a more professional feel to it even in desktop use. And also the much longer lifespan of Rocky Linux (RHEL) is a big plus too, the EOL deadline will not come quite as soon as with e.g. Linux Mint/Ubuntu.
Plus, setting up Rocky Linux in dualboot with Windows 11 Pro (which has Bitlocker enabled) and SecureBoot seems easier, and at least doable, compared to other distro families. For instance:
-
Linux Mint insisted I’d have to disable (unencrypt) BitLocker in the Windows 11, before I can install Mint on the side. Apparently I could still enable BitLocker afterwards, but I didn’t want to test it. I have to have BitLocker enabled on Windows 11 Pro, employer requirement and I prefer it too. Hey I have luks2 encryption enabled on the Rocky Linux partition too!
-
I tried Manjaro (based on ArchLinux I think) as well, but it doesn’t support SecureBoot at all, apparently. The most common advice in Manjaro forums is to disable SecureBoot, which is not an option for me on this laptop, due to Windows 11.
1 Like
Well, I really don’t remember.
DOS 5.0 was the first OS on a 386 with 80MB HDD.
I am pretty sure that the first Linux was Mandriva and then Ubuntu, Debian, OpenSUSE, Gentoo and from then the list is too long to list here but RHEL, OEL, Rocky, Alma, SLES…
Works with whatever fits the environment I am working on.
1 Like
Hi All
Well since many of the replies don’t start with a linux distro, I feel including others in my timeline is OK.
First OS was Sunos 3.5 (about 1989), with a suntools desktop, then windows 3.0, then in parallel with windows, Solaris 2.2, onwards. my first linux distro was slackware 3.0 around 1995, with a bleeding edge 1.0 kernel as i needed some adaptec scsi drivers for my disk. onwards and upwards mandrake possibly version 7.0 initially about 2000, stayed with mandrake/mandriva/mageia until around 2020 when i switched to Fedora KDE (this is all desktop stuff). in parallel on server side started on Redhat ES2.0 around 2005 and evolved through Rhel 7.0 when i retired in 2018, along with Centos on my home stuff. switched to rocky as soon as it was available for the same reasons as most people.
regards peter
1 Like
Pre Linux was SunOS 3.5 and BSD4.2 systems. Then some SVr2, SVr3 and Ultrix 3 and Ultrix 4. And some Xenix 286. And then SunOS 4.
But for Linux, my first exposure was 0.11 root+boot disks. Then MCC Interim. Then SLS. Then home-grown, with some help from Yggdrasil.
https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/1111
Maybe around 1996 I bought an Infomagic CD collection that had RedHat 3 on it, and that’s pretty much when I started (and stayed) within the RedHat space. I got a Debian CD from a LUG a couple of months later, but it was too late for me to switch over. Which worked out well 'cos when my employer moved to Linux they went with RHEL 2.1, so I already knew it (it was basically RedHat 6).
At home I stuck with RedHat until Fedora when I realised it was going to be annoying chasing rapid versions, but fortunately CentOS then existed. I still have some C7.9 systems, but all my 8 systems are Rocky.
My desktop is Debian 11.
Now I would have skipped Linux totally back in 1992 if there was a free BSD system ('cos I was a SunOS 4 user), but the BSD Net2 and 386BSD didn’t understand DOS partitioning and couldn’t share disk space with my existing partitions, whereas Linux could (I wasn’t rich enough to buy a second hard disk!).
All those happy accidents (partions, getting RedHat before Debian, etc) lead me to here 
RedHat. I still have the 5.1 box. I also had the Unleashing RedHat Linux book that came with a CD of 5.2.
1 Like
started my journey with Freebsd (7.0) and Openbsd. then discovered Linux
slackware, mandrake, red hat, centos, and finally ubuntu. once there i
switched to gnu/debian until a few months ago as i just found out about
rocky linux at work. now using exclusively debian and rocky linux
systems for prod and dev respectively! cheers
1 Like
RedHat 6.2… I was desperate for something to stick on my crashy Windows 95 (yes, windows 95 in 2000ish) machine in college. I’ve tried a lot of others (a Knoppix live CD used to ride around in my backpack all the time, I could stick it in any machine in the computer labs and have a Linux machine like magic!), but ended up sticking with RHL → Fedora for personal stuff, and CentOS->RockyLinux for work stuff. Of course, public-facing stuff at work is on RHEL, but I’m not in charge of any of that
With RH in the process of being ruined by IBM, I’m not sure where I’d go if Rocky/Alma end up being frozen out. I guess Debian?
1 Like
I actually started with SunOS/Solaris back in the early- to mid-90s. The university I attended and where I later worked was using it. It was in the Unix environment that I first learned shell scripting, HTML, and Perl. (One thing I should point out: I am not a developer or an engineer; I’m a “hobbyist”.)
My first official Linux distro was Red Hat 9. A co-worker gave me a copy the summer of 2003. By November, Red Hat pulled the plug on “Red Hat Linux”, forcing it’s “freeloaders” (aka users) onto Fedora. Looking back on it, it seems that my entire Linux experience has been dominated by highly questionable and disruptive Red Hat decisions. You’d think I would have learned my lesson by now*.
Once Red Hat Linux was dead, I moved on to Linux from Scratch and then Beyond Linux from Scratch. That was “fun” until it came time to actually upgrade a package. From there, I went Ubuntu > Debian > ElementaryOS. I really loved the Elementary UI.
After that, I went to a hybrid of Arch and Fedora (Arch on an old Thinkpad and Fedora on a newer Ideapad). I am a librarian by trade and I got a wild hair to install Koha for my personal use at home. I didn’t want to use Ubuntu (which is Koha’s recommended server OS) and thought that a Red Hat-based system would be a practical alternative. So I went to CentOS. I got it all set up and running and then, blammo, Red Hat killed CentOS. Fortunately, Rocky came to my rescue. I was able to migrate my Koha instance to Rocky and everything had been mostly fine until this current debacle. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that Koha server OS yet, but my laptops are all running Arch now.
(*) I actually have finally learned my lesson: I have sworn off Red Hat for good. I will continue to follow and cheer for Rocky, but I am finally done with Red Hat. I’ve even abandoned Fedora, too, which I’m sure will be my loss in the long run. Fedora was a great distro, but I cannot in good conscience continue to be a part of an ecosystem that does not value me. So my Fedora machine is now running Arch, where I will probably remain.
1 Like
Slackware 1.2 in 1994. It was the only one available. You had to configure and compile the kernel in order to use it.
1 Like
My first distro alt linux and mantriva linux 
when i was study in school…
1 Like
A first experience with 386bsd 1.0 (1992) NetBSD suite (1993), OpenBSD. Work leads me to Linux Slackware (1995?).
1 Like
I have actually a faint recollection that a fellow student (albeit in physics) did rave about some “new OS” around 1991–1992. Back then I did not pay attention what that was about, but could have been Linux.
Like OP, Mandrake 7, maybe 7.2 specifically. I started dual-booting because it was easier than Cygwin and MinGW, and eventually stopped needing to boot Windows at all (having taken that path actually makes me wonder if WSL will, ironically, cut that route off behind me). High-energy physics made me an Enterprise Linux person, prior to which I had been less specialized.
1 Like
Gutsy Gibbons and Wolvix back in 2007 were my first. I quickly migrated to Linux Mint KDE 3.X which was lovely even though buggy as hell sometimes. Mostly stuck with mint and fedora over the years, but I have to say I had the most fun with Korora and #! RIP
1 Like