Linux

Andromeda Linux around 2009. It had cool astronomy based theme and animation.

My first was Ubuntu in a VM because everyone recommended it, I distro hopped in VMs until I just ended up using Mint in a VM almost exclusively. It was when I complained to someone about the issues with the VM when locking the laptop and they asked me “Why not just run that system as-is?” that I installed it for real.

I've also used Manjaro for half a year, a very minimal Arch+i3 install (without the install script because I wanted the “real experience”) for about 1.5 year, and dual booted Bazzite and Mint on my gaming PC for a year (it's just Mint now), all the while trying out other distros big and small on older hardware or in VMs.

I don't feel I've found “the one”, but somehow I keep coming back to Mint... Although, perhaps NixOS is it... Who knows?

Some random shitty distributions for netbooks.

Then Ubuntu 11.04 and I have very fond memories of it. But now Ubuntu sucks.

Using Debian 13 with KDE currently.

I actually wanted Arch but everyone was saying that you HAD to do a manual install first and I had been miserably failing at doing it in a WM for a few weeks. I had finally decided to try it directly on hardware so that I had no choice but to complete it if I wanted to use my laptop, and just as was about to burn the ISO on a USB stick the power went out and my hard drive died 😑 On a saturday evening, obviously...

All I had was a Haiku USB I had made to check it out, and a Linux Mint USB a friend lent me that I hadn't tried because I assumed I would hate it. So I used Haiku for about 30 minutes (let's say it had a few bugs), and Mint for the rest of the weekend and did, in fact, absolutely hate it (Windows PTSD 😭 ).

So until the computer store opened on Monday, I spend 48 hours browsing the web to find a better distro and when I got my new SSD I installed AntiX, because it was very light and likely to run well on my potato-grade laptop, it came without a DE and 7 different window managers to try (which seemed cool at the time, but I didn't actually try any of them except the default one IceWM and after a few weeks I installed i3 😅 ) and also because YouTube had convinced me that systemd was the Antechrist (thanks YouTube 😑 ).

After two months I decided to try Manjaro on my other laptop... it didn't go well : incompatible dependencies preventing updates, Nvidia + Wayland making games not display correctly, and if I had to fix all that manually what's the point I just might as well use regular Arch. So I gave up after 48 hours and decided to install Arch, and just as I booted from the Arch ISO the laptop died (fan malfunction) and I had to send it back 😑.

After three months, the third laptop, bought with the refund from the second one, did actually allow me to install Arch without throwing a fit 🥳 using archinstall to preserve my mental health this time.

Arch has been really great but I need to switch to a bigger SSD and I am probably going to try Nix because it seems really cool 🤩

I first tried Mandrake for a couple days in the late 9ps because I heard it was easy. It was definitely easy to brick my system and have no idea why!

So I switched to Slackware and never looked back. I'm still daily driving Slackware all these years later.

redhat 4.1 or maybe 5.2 back around 1996-1998 (plus a freebsd release around the same time). I got a pile of probably 15 discs from walnut creek and they were the only two I could get running. I didn't have internet access at the time.

Ubuntu Lucid Lynx

Currently, I use Arch BTW.

Ubuntu Feisty Fawn.

My first linux distribution was Linux From Scratch (LFS). I printed like 300 pages at the school library so I could run it at home. My first real distribution was Gentoo or Damn Small Linux.

My first steps were with Debian 2.0 and a Suse Version from about the same time. But that was not very successful so I went back to Windows for about a year and then really got into Linux with Gentoo. I had a year of not much to do, had to wait a year to get into University, and I decided to install the complicated Linux Distribution that I could find.

Reasoning was: It will break a lot if it is so complicated, due to this I am forced to learn while repairing it.

Linux Mint XFCE, it was easy to setup and could run on my really old laptop.

It started with Red Hat 6.1 in 1999 and ended up with NixOS.

Mandrake

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.

Bodhi Linux. It had to be something that could run on a 32 bit laptop, because that's what I used as a testing ground before committing to Linux.

Oof. I am pretty sure it was Mandrake in 97. I bounced around trying what was around before settling on Gentoo for a decade plus. Then both my laptop and desktop got too long in the tooth to make distcc even worthwhile and migrated to Arch. I figured it was the closest distro to Gentoo that I wouldn't have too many problems. I don't know howong it's been now, but I'm an Arch fangirl. I've installed it many times since on work computers as well. For remote systems though, it's always Debian stable.

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.

I bought one of those Guide to Linux books back in like 2008 that came with an Ubuntu install disc. Installed it on an old family PC but I didn't really know what I was doing so I didn't get far.

Then in college I used Mint on my desktop and Peppermint on my Acer Aspire netbook. Around graduation I bought a Chromebook and ran Xubuntu in Crouton.

Went a few years without Linux and recently dual-booted with Pop OS on my gaming PC. Feels good.

Ubunutu for a server in ~2019.

Arch for my workstation Jan 2025

The first one I saw was Debian 3.1 (Sarge). I was in school and our objective this time was installing debian + getting a working Xorg session. Never heard of Linux before, didn't get a working Xorg session, but wow man, there's something other than Windows and MacOS. I couldn't have imagined.

The first one I actually used on a desktop (laptop for school, in that case) was Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake).

I've tried oh so many different linux distributions over the years, I probably forgot most of them. Maybe some don't even exist anymore. My goal was always Arch Linux, having seen it on a schoolmates laptop. I really fell for the "here's a pretty minimum base, do whatever" thing.

In the end, I exclusively used Arch from 2020 until this year. Actually using Arch and reading the ArchWiki were probably what taught me most of what I know about linux in general and how things work.

I've been searching for a less DIY-solution which is still up-to-date (especially with kernels and mesa) and I landed on Fedora Workstation, which is what I'm currently using on my work latpop and desktop at home. I do miss some things from Arch, but Fedora has been pretty good to me and I, for the meantime, intend to stay here.

I used slackware, btw

All the old timers are coming out. In the summer of ‘98 I switched to Red Hat Linux.

Sadly, Ubuntu. I quickly moved on to debian...and ultimately landed with Arch, my true love for many years. I use Arch, btw.

The first was about 1995-ish Redhat on school computers, after that was Suse on a 2000s laptop, and currently Mint+Mx on a self-built pc. Hardware support and ease of use has come a long way since then.

OpenSuse with compiz going hard on an old laptop

Corel Linux in the late 90s, but didn't actually go full time until Ubuntu in 05,followed by arch for a few years, now on mint.

Ubuntu 8.10 in late 2008. while I didn't use Linux for that long due to a lack of understanding I did come back to it in in a few years to check out I think Ubuntu 10.04 in 2010 or and then Fedora 36 a few years ago and never plan to leave

Chrome OS, obviously. jk

Probably Knoppix on some Laptop my dad brought home at around 2001-2002. Still remember tinkering with it and having no idea what I am doing haha. Good times.

Casual Deck owner here. Arch Linux is my answer.

I ran slackware in college with fluxbox. I thought I was pretty darn cool.

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.

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.