My first Linux install was SUSE Enterprise that I got from a Novell conference back in 2003 or 2004. Later, I discovered Ubuntu and ordered a free CD. I also remember seeing and wanting to get Red Hat Linux and SUSE box sets in Office Depot but my mom never did buy me one of those boxed sets. But later on in life, I found a Red Hat box set at one of my old employers and was able to take it home

Thank you. Great reminder. I keep checking for a WINE 64bit that can run natively on a Mac. Still appears to be a dream. There's the virtual option of course, but I'd really love to see a Big Sur native WINE app.

It was the summer of 2009 and I finally got interested in computers, so I got a pile of parts from an 8 year old Alienware box and put my first PC together. It used an AMD processor with on of the old Slot A sockets. Years later I put this box to server duty where it ran 24/7 for 2 or 3 years.

I ditched the Windows idea after seeing the sticker price of $250, as well as deciding that I wanted to devote my efforts to a professional operating system. So I tried to install Fedora 10 on it, but I didn't have enough memory. Then I went with Xubuntu and it ran OK, but I didn't really like it. I ended up settling on Linux Mint, but I've been quite a distro hopper ever since.

OldFordGuy

I joined an Australian Linux club that used Mandrake and the tutor assisted members with media and installation. Later I moved to Fedora 5.

I had had PCs, both at home and at work, since the first days of MSDOS PCs in the early 80s, and had always used the current MS operating system, first DOS and then successive versions of Windows. I had always enjoyed tinkering with my computer set-ups (and that of my wife, who has no patience for that sort of thing and just wants it to work for her). And still do enjoy that, but I'm really just a "hacker" and have almost no formal training in using computers. By the end of the first decade of this century (i.e. around 2010) I had gotten really annoyed with Windows for a number of reasons, and I wanted to try something else, but was still working hard and felt that I should wait until I retired and had more time. I had a number of friends who, at one time or another, had switched from a Windows PC to a Mac, and every one of them was happier; none had switched back - and I knew almost no one who had switched the other way. So when I was about to retire in 2014 I was planning to buy myself a Mac as a retirement present and spend some time getting to know it and make the switch. But shortly before that happened I asked a friend who was a theoretical Computer Science professor what he used and he told me that he used a Linux system that the IT centre at his university had set up for him. (He told me that he loves the "big picture" theory of computer science and particularly some specific issues that he works on, but actually tinkering with his own computer gives him little pleasure and he, like my wife, just wants something that works. But he was happy with the Linux set-up that he had, which, he said, was something called OpenSuse.) I had heard of Linux, but knew absolutely nothing about it. So I did some online research, found out that there were these things called "distributions" and how they worked. A number of the things I read gave me the impression that one of the most accessible and well-supported distributions was Ubuntu, so I downloaded Ubuntu Unity and installed it on my PC as a dual boot with the Windows 7 op sys that I had been using. So that was my introducation to Linux in 2014 and my first distro. I liked it. It did what I wanted it to do, and, being someone who hates to spend money, I liked the fact that so much great software was available absolutely free.

By the way, I don't use Ubuntu any more. After a year or two, I got a new desktop computer and there was something about Ubuntu didn't work well on the new computer (I can't remember what it was, any more) but I found that Linux Mint did work well and I liked Cinnamon much better than Unity anyhow, so that became my new distro of choice and I loaded it on my new computer as a dual boot with the Windows 10 that the computer had come with. But there was at least one peice of software that I liked a lot and that didn't work well on Cinnamon. Some research showed me that that software was designed for KDE so I loaded Mint KDE on the computer as a triple-boot (along with Windows 10 and Mint Cinnamon.). I liked KDE a lot, not only because that one peice of software worked properly on it but also because I like its graphics and general "look and feel." But a few years ago, Mint dropped its KDE edition and so I eventually decided to look for another KDE distro, and ended up settling on Manjaro KDE which I have been using happily now for a few years. I have to confess that there are a few things that aren't working perfectly for me on my Manjaro set-up and I have thought about switching again, and even tried to a while ago. Wanting to stick with a KDE distro and remembering that my friend who got me onto Linux in the first place was using OpenSuse, I loaded OpenSuse Tumbleweed and used it for a while. (It's still on my computer as part of what is now a quintuple-boot setup.) But there were issues with Tumbleweed that I couldn't overcome and that were considerably worse than the minor ones I had with Manjaro, so I have been back using my Manjaro installation almost exclusively.

By the way, this is all on the desktop computer in my home "study". I also have a Microsoft Surface touchscreen laptop that I take with me when I'm away from home and it's still running just the Windows 10 that it came with.

Had to be about 96 or 97. I had heard about Linux and saw Redhat in a Computer Store. Been a Fan ever since.

Ik started using Knoppix in 1998 alongside Windows 98.
Ik met Manfred Jeusfeld in winter 2006/2007 and he said to me, why don't you try Ubuntu?
So first I used Knoppix and Ubuntu both, but after half a year I choose for Ubuntu and I'm still using it. Uur

Circa 1998, I was still fairly new to computers but Windows95 simply wasn't working for me. Too many experiences of blue screen, corrupt data, defragging disasters and peripheral hardware configuration conflicts. I was enjoying DOS (including QBasic programming & videos games) and batch files so when I heard of Linux and bash-shell programming it sounded like a possible replacement for Windows. First attempt was to download the floppies across a modem connection, after which I made a tentative install. However I ran into problems and retreated to DOS briefly before obtaining a Debian 2.1 install CD (which I still have!) and tried that. The install worked but I could not get Xwindows GUI up and running. First successful install was an early Mandrake which seemed to handle the Xwindows configuration seamlessly. Tried several other early distros including TurboLinux but Mandrake seemed most stable and trouble-free, until I discovered the hell of upgrading software without a proper dependency tracker. That eventually led me back to Debian which had evolved by 2005 to the point where its GUI setup was much more automatic, and its dependency resolution with either apt-get or synaptic was like heaven. Stuck with Debian for many years and still think it's under-appreciated, but these days my default is Slackware.

Redhat linux 7 will it work? learnt lots and still learning now using Manjaro

My first PC was a Dell I purchased the end of 1999. Until that point, I'd only ever seen a PC in magazines, TV, or in the shops. I was living in the middle of nowhere and this was going to be my "window to the world". Well, Win 98SE was NOT what I thought it would be. I just didn't really like it, as a whole. The bluescreens were irritating and I knew about Mac's, but didn't really like them either.

I ended up taking the PC apart the day after the 1yr warranty was up. I installed a Powerleap CPU (went from P3 to P4) and it did seem to run a bit snappier. Afterwards, I started searching to see if there were alternatives and found an article on Knoppix. I remember being really excited to test it out and created my first OS-CD. I was simply flabbergasted! I could NOT believe what I was seeing! An entire OS running from a CD??? AND, it could be used to do data recovery for all of the people I knew who had problems with Windows!

I distro-hopped for a while and finally settled on Linux Mint. I love it to this day. Fantastic OS!

It was around 2000, I was a teenager. I had a PC of my own, I think it was probably my Gateway PII 350MHz (bought second hand at a ham fest), and a Red Hat CD. I want to say it was Red Hat 7, but I could be wrong. To be clear, this was the original Red Hat, before Fedora or RHEL existed. To get it online, I made my first network by connecting my parent's computer to my computer through a network hub (10/100 cards and hub acquired at the same ham fest) and assigning both static IPs, then sharing the 56k internet connection from their computer to mine. To be honest, the experience wasn't a good one. The package manager did not work well with my older desktop hardware and sloooow internet connection. I also tried openSUSE with similar results. Both Red Hat and openSuSE were more novelties then actual, usable OSs to me at the time, because I didn't have any software to do anything with, and the package manager spent more time syncing to make sure it was up to date then actually downloading anything. I think I spent more time waiting for yast/yum to update and trying to get the winmodem to work then actually using the OS. I eventually gave up, and it was a few years before I tried linux again.

Around 2003/2004 I discovered the wonders of debian, and when ubuntu came out I was an early adopter. I found apt and dpkg much easier to use then yum/yast and rpm, at least for a beginner, and they worked much better on my slow internet. For several years I had a Thinkpad i1300 that dual booted Windows XP and ubuntu, but mainly ran ubuntu. Looking through my own old posts it appears I had fedora core 3 on a desktop at the same time, but I honestly don't remember using it much. I think it migrated to ubuntu as well before too long. I've played with other distros over the years, but I've always come back to ubuntu or debian for most projects.

Back to the beginning of the Millennium and Slackware 7.1.
What do I remember: the sleepless nights and the joy after any success installing new devices and packages.

Thanks for the question.

My first Linux was Suse (1997?). It came on 4 CDs, worked well, but I changed soon to Debian and stayed there until systemd. Now i am running Devuan Beowulf. Never had any fails, but I do not use many applications. I am still feeling uncomfortable with so many applications installed I don't need and I would like much to test a system, where I can put together "my" system with only the few software I need (Gimp,LibreOffice,Kdenlive,small browser, simple scan, xfburn or other, gparted, mousepad). Any suggestions, hints or reports welcome.
;-)

Slackware will give you more freedom to build custom and selective. However you might find the initial setup slightly more challenging than Debian/Devuan. Dual boot and keep your familiar Devuan while deciding if you want to migrate. Once set up, Slackware is rock-solid.

My first linux install was in fact redhat. I donot recall what version. It included many things such as server, desktop and every other bit of software you could think of... I never had problems with sound or video. Unlike todays versions. They are more dedicated and not all encompassing. With todays software I finally found a post with a few simple terminal commands (which one of the your responders says there is not a few simple commands) my sound and video was set up on this computer. However I didn't record the method and now I cannot find the gentleman's post with those commands and therefore have spent many hours trying to remedy these problems. So I am having problems with other machines. Anyway I love the older version.