This is fun!!!!!!

you're right.... i started with macmillan/red-hat 5.2 (which was just red hat with extras... possibly a pre-cursor to mandrake), then pure red hat 6.0.
after feeling like there had to be more (better than windows, but not quite perfect) i discovered Debian woody.
now have upgraded to unstable and i'm laughing out loud (lol!!). once you get through the install life becomes perfect and i no longer hunger for more. I found perfection............

My God is linux, my religion is Debian
(linux is what i believe in, Debian is how i choose to have linux delivered to me).

since early 1996 under productive conditions (main server, printserver and workstations)
DLD ...5.4 -> RH 5.1 ... 7.3 -> KNOPPIX 3.2 -> Debian 3.0r1

under testing conditions (give a evaluation try - but not really productive)
Minix, Coherent, SuSE 6.1...8.2, Mandrake 8.1/8.2, NetBSD 1.4/1.6,
RedHat 7.1/7.2/8.0/9.0, Debian 3.0r0

my conclusion:
KNOPPIX for M$/Linux movers who want to try without risk.
Debian for the cracks who need a stable/universal toolset.

IMHO some pros and cons to improve installation routine (e.g. as in KNOPPIX):
pro - easier to explain and handle it from the point of view of a newbie,
con - universality and freedom of choice is then limited.

The poll should have been checkboxes, not radio-buttons. I've tried several distros. The first couple of times I started I went on to another because it was too much bother getting started. But recently I installed LibraNet, and that's been so good that I switched from both Red Hat and Mandrake. (The Mandrake box be go back to being Mandrake. It really need support for end-user sound and graphics packages, like RoseGarden. I haven't really gotten that to work on Debian, but Mandrake is building a special rpm for it, so presumably they HAVE gotten it to work right. Of course, it could be my sound card... but it works with other applications.)

Sorry, not available. I've thought about this, that's why I said "just before Debian"..

None, Debian is one of many I use.

Desktop:
I started with Red Hat 5.0 then moved on to Slackware. After Slackware I tried Gentoo. Gentoo crapped out on me so I tried Debian. I've been very happy since.
Laptop:
RH 6.0 then Mandrake. Installed Debian via Knoppix

My conclusions on this distro journey:
- Apt-get is the best package management system
- Upgrades are a breeze with Debian
- Kernel compiles areen't that much different from the rest

I've been using Debian for over 2 months now and I still fail to see whats so great about apt. I mean, I'm always having to re-run the upgrade commands as once is never enough to fully upgrade the system due to timeouts and it breaks packages into many more sub-packages than necessary although it scores points over the other major package management system that does this, RPM, because apt is smart enough to bring all the pieces together without externel help, something RPM has yet to manage in a standardised way across all the distro's that support it. On these scores, Gentoo's Portage system is so much better it just isn't funny.

I tried every distro I could get: rh up to v 7.3, mandrake to v. 8.0, caldera up to v 2.4 (server and workstation), turbolinux 6, storm, corel, suse 6.3, slackware, debian, and then a friend gave me a libranet 1.2 cd.

After fighting with mandrake 6.0 for quite a while I rebuilt my office computer with slack 7.0, then went to slack 7.1 and then 8.0. I added a dedicated e-mail, samba print/file server to our office that I put together from libranet 1.9 on a 200MMX machine.

Slack is cool because everything is really manual, hands on, you do it or it doesn't get done. I learned a whole bunch about how linux works using slack and I just recently had a machine up with slack 9, WOW is it fast (all gcc 3.2 and stable). But all of the 'fancy' packages I wanted for slack 9 were compiled for 686 processors and I have a bunch of AMD k2-300-450 machines so I couldn't use the slack packs and would have had to compile everything for my machine, sorry not enough time for that. Also on my machine at school that is a 686 machine I can't get slack 9 to connect to the widows 2000 IIS network, I also had problems with rh 7.3, if my machine got restarted I wouldn't have any network access.

I have three woody machines built from libranet 2.0 that are pretty much rock solid, set up nicely and still reasonably fast for my hardware. My woody machines with a bunch of backports are much faster than a knoppix hd install, but I do keep one multi-boot machine with woody, knoppix, and morphix so I have the latest upgrades available to play with.

~rock

- Redhat 7.3 for a few months: just started out with a default install just to try some of the things it came with. Loved gnome and absolutely hated kde.

- Then Mandrake 9.0: that lasted about a week. Didn't really like it compared to redhat.

- Redhat 8.0: By this time I started installing programs by rpm or source. Hated searching for dependency rpms. Having to open an rhn account to get updates was annoying. I don't remember having to do that with rh 7.3, but maybe i did. I wish they would have left gnome and kde alone.

- Debian woody: The install actually is very easy. I don't get why so many people are afraid of it. Not much different than any other distro either, just have an idea of how you want to partition your hard drive, stay away from dselect, and you'll be fine. Apt-get is awesome. Lost interest in gnome and now just use icewm. I never remembered the steps for compiling kernels, but the kernel-package makes it so easy!! This distro has everything i need. The manuals and how-tos on the debian website are very helpful.

- Freebsd 5.0: Yeah I know this isn't linux. I just wanted to try it. I haven't seen anything I like about it better than Debian. Ports and package system is nice. I only have this and Debian on my computers now, but use Debian more often.

have used quite a few linux distros in the last 2 years-

suse 8.0, 8.1 ,8.2
red hat 7.3, 8.0 , 9.0
mandrake 8.2, mandrake 9.1

and many others

i have tryed installing debian, came close to getting it installed, sort of like free bsod, both pretty tough install, though i did get bdod installed.

just by luck, i found libranet the other night, download 2.7, it was so easy, had it installed in 30 minutes. put it on one of my rigs that had suse 8.2 on it. i really like libranet, liked it so much that i bought 2.81, downloaded the 2 cd,s , burned em. and installed. 2.81 has nice desktop, lot more software than 2.7. got to say i like libranet the best so far, package installation is so easy, and adminmenu is great.

I used mandrake for a while, but found that rpms suck. Yeah debain is a little harder at first but in the long run I have saved alot time, and have a nice system set up how i want it to be.

Amen to that.

LSD...
isn't gentoo based on debian?

yes it is.

I was used at work Red Hat 7.2 for Proxy(squid) and Webserver(apache). Now I am proud that use Debian GNU/Linux!

~ just one noob opinion