I second momist as I always recommend Mint to anyone that wants to try linux. Peppermint is another perfect choice if you are running on slightly older hardware. In most cases, I have seen people make the transition (especially from XP) to Mint with no problem and love it.

I first became aware of Linux in the fall of 1996 while reading on LOCKERGNOME, and requested one of the free UBUNTU disks that were available then.
My one desktop was a Win 98se Dell that seemed like a good candidate for the installation, so I replaced the hard drive (fortunately) and, not knowing the lingo or what I was doing, I totally screwed up the installation, to the point where it would not even boot reliably. I learned later about hardware compatibility.
I replaced the drive and went back to Win 98se and did not try again until I got a copy of Ubuntu 7.10.
I must have learned something from my initial failure because this time it worked like a charm, and I was on the internet almost automatically. After that I was hooked.
After many various distro installations (not always successful) I have dual booted all six of my laptops and two desktops. The dual boots are either Win 7 and Ubuntu 13.10 or Win 8 (8.1) and Mint 15 or 16. Oh, and I have a netbook with only Lubuntu 12.04 which is solid as a rock.
The only reason I have Win 8 and 8.1 is that I repair and upgrade computers and I need to know the Microsoft OS's.

I think you'll find that Ubuntu was released in 2003/4.

Perhaps you mean Debian?

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"Slackware 95" Published by Walnut Creek in a 4-CD Boxed Set that included additional material.
Slackware Release 3.0.0 (Linux 2.0) in disguise, it is still running on the same pc clone chassis that was purchased as a Win95 box (initial release, pre USB).

Debian, 2013
Ubuntu, 2013
CentOS, 2013

This topic alone brought out all the lurkers. even me.

I signed up in 2013 and I came out the woodwork.

Just found my Unbuntu 9.04 Desk Top Cd that was sent free by mail.

I don't remember the year on that, 2006 or so.

Found Ubuntu the best.

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You know what 9.04 stands for? xD (April, 2009)

I started with Ubuntu 6.06 or 6.10.
Between 2006 and 2011: Ubuntu, Debian, Mint, openSUSE, Fedora.
2011+: Debian. Usually testing but since a couple of months ago, I'm running Wheezy+backports.

I don't know the years, it's been over 10 that I've been involved with Linux. I read an embedded Linux development book which I can't even find via web searching anymore, I long ago gave it to a junior engineer for their perusal. That book based all their examples off of Debian. However the absolute first desktop distribution I downloaded and ran was Mandriva. Truthfully though it was merely there so that I could have a Linux system to host my development for MontaVista embedded Linux on an ARM processor. Now I use Ubuntu as my development workstation. Technically I did download Debian while reading that book, but really didn't have an everyday system running Linux until I got Mandriva. Actually might've been Mandrake, I forget which came first.

SLS was my first distro.

Slackware

Mine was Ubuntu. After that i use redhat and now centos.

Slackware v.2.0.0 from 1994-ish is the oldest disk I could find, but may have started a version earlier. Making root and boot disks.

I purchased a disc containing SUSU from a US Army Px.
Matthew

Kubuntu 2007