Linux

Slackware96 from Walnut Creek purchased at Staples back when software came in boxes with manuals. Netscape Navigator 3.0 anyone?

Ubuntu, I hated it lol

Started with Mint and stuck with that for a year. No issues, just felt comfortable enough to try something "fancier", I guess Mint was a little too reliable lol. Went with PopOS a while for the native dock and tiling manager, loved it. Now I'm on a brand new PC build and enjoying gaming with Bazzite. No tinkering involved, it setup my 5070 Ti automatically.

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.

I dual booted Ubuntu originally, but I never used it. Had to really make the jump when I installed Arch on my desktop in ~2020 because I heard it would run games better. I've stayed 100% on Linux since! After trying quite a few distros (Fedora, Debian, EndeavourOS, Garuda, Archcraft, more I'm forgetting) I have finally settled on NixOS... it's been over a year and I still haven't switched, that's gotta be worth something :)

Zorin OS because they said it was windows like

I guess technically, Raspbian.

Hmm, the years are a bit faded but first install of Redhat in 1996-7 somewhere as a short experiment, then Slackware, SuSE, LFS, Gentoo, and since then lazy with Kubuntu.. Might switch again soon with the Snap fiasco.

Pop!_OS in early 2023, I used it for about 3 weeks before my bootloader broke so bad even Pops own recovery tool couldn't fix it. I went back to Windows 10 for another month before trying again with EndeavourOS and haven't had to use Windows since.

Funnily the thing that triggered me to install Linux on a spare SSD was I couldn't play Battlefield 4 on my Windows install anymore because the EA app randomly stopped working even after reinstalling the whole thing, Got the EA app and BF4 working on Pop within an hour.

Welcome to Lemmy stranger.

Slackware back in the early 90s on a Compaq 386/SX20 💾

The first I used for any extended period of time was fedora.

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.

SuSE in 1996. Then Debian between mid-1997 and late 2023, NixOS since.

I'm not a big distrohopper...

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

Dreamlinux :) 2.2 maybe.

Ubuntu, circa 2005ish I think. Played with all the *buntu derivatives back then, went back to windows for a while, then tried Manjaro, found it frustratingly unstable, and now I use PopOS.

It was DSLinux, Linux for the Nintendo DS. I tried it while hacking with the DS just to try that "Linux" everyone was talking about. I installed Ubuntu on my PC short after it.

Red Hat, before the enterprise stuff, back in 1999. Installed from a CD found in a book from the library

Ubuntu back in 2014. Followed by Elementary not long after

I played a bit with Suse around 2000, but I switched to Linux as my main OS with Ubuntu in 2005.
Now I use Manjaro, because I like the rolling release concept, and it's easy to use different kernels, and it's a good KDE distro IMO.
In my experience it's also among the best for Steam games.

Kali Linux. Because I was a kid who wanted to be a hackerman.