What was YOUR first Linux/BSD?

[leech]

The first Unix type system I used would probably be MiNT on my Atari Mega STe, if you could count that. Otherwise I did use System V through the internet..... But the first one I actually installed was RedHat 4.2 and Debian 1.3.

Leech

[Marshmallowman]

I did play around with mint, but it was a bit to cut down to be much use.

First Linux I installed was slackware version based on the 1.2.x kernel, It could not recognise 2940 uw so I had to compile a 1.3.x development kernel to get it working, that installation lasted about 5 years, while the windows partiton went from 3.1 to 3.1nt to nt 4 to w95...I used unix at uni prior to that

[leech]

RH 4.2 had Kernel version 2.0.30 and Debian 1.3 had 2.0.29. I actually recall all the extreme excitement over the 2.1.x and 2.2.x kernel. And the same for 2.4.x. Though I haven't played with many of the 2.5.x or 2.6.x yet. The few things that I was having trouble with before, I managed to get working finally in 2.4.x. Thankfully I didn't try back as far as the 1.2.x because the first PC I built for myself had a 2940 in it, without any IDE. (which pretty much is what my system is now as well, a AHA-19160 and two SCSI harddrives.)

Leech

[TnT]

Mandrake 5.something, but I only used it twice because Linux + Promise controller card didn't work correctly so I had to floppy boot which was too inconvenient since Linux was just a curiousity at the time.

Mozilla is what really enlightened me to open source software. Been using it since M12!

Thien

[Marshmallowman]

hehe, my first couple of linux installs used to use a msdos boot drive which had multi config config.sys which either booted windows or used loadlin to boot linux.

Mainly because It seemed to me every time I installed linux(no matter how smoothly it seemed to go) it would never boot up properly after the installation without me putting in at least 3 extra kernel parameters.

And got around always booting from floppy, at the time you would be suprised how many linux & UNIX systems used a boot floppy!!

[Zao]

My first was Slackware 3.6, running on my old trusty P133 dualbooted with 95.
I think 3.6 was kernel 2.0 or 1.2.

[leech]

I'd hate to say it, but I still haven't tried out slackware. I've gotten so used to the way Debian based distros do it, that everytime I try something else, I just end up coming back to Debian .

My first Linux system was running on a Pentium 200MMX. In fact the original reason I wanted to give linux a try was because I found Enlightenment on the net and it looked VERY sweet, so I installed it just to play with that. Of course at the time you had to compile it, and X was a pain to get working. But I managed it, and it was sweet. Though there weren't many apps around either.

Leech

[mallowman]

My first installation was RedHat 4.2 on my 50MHz 486. I loved it because I was actually able to do something useful with an older computer. Windows 95 was a dog on that computer and Windows 3.1 just wasn't very useful to begin with. It was also great because I was able to use a couple of 2 gig drives in a 486, I never even bothered trying to tell the BIOS about the drive, but since linux doesn't use the bios to talk to the drive it didn't matter.

I've been a RedHat guy since then, but I installed Debian on my desktop at work once. Every once and a while I think about trying out a different distro, but I'd rather have my computer working without having to figure out how a different distro works. Maybe if/when I get a second computer I'll install something different on it.

[KeiFront]

My first installation was Redhat 5.2. Currently I'm running Debian (unstable) but some friends are trying to persuade me to try out Gentoo. Maybe I will but I just love Debian.

[TnT]

Originally posted by Marshmallowman
hehe, my first couple of linux installs used to use a msdos boot drive which had multi config config.sys which either booted windows or used loadlin to boot linux.

Mainly because It seemed to me every time I installed linux(no matter how smoothly it seemed to go) it would never boot up properly after the installation without me putting in at least 3 extra kernel parameters.

And got around always booting from floppy, at the time you would be suprised how many linux & UNIX systems used a boot floppy!!

I guess I just wasn't patient enough in my youth


Last year was when I really started rockin' and rollin' with Linux. I got my sisters p133 laptop, tried Mandrake 8.2 and it was a dog; then put on VectorLinux which worked alright but then the LCD went bad . At the same time I had Mandrake on my PC so that I could try out LFS. Everything installed fine, but I ran pretty much all developmental/beta sources, so nothing ever really worked correctly or stabily . Then I got a new apartment and cable connection, so I put on Gentoo and now I can't see myself using another distro!

[thop]

My first Linux was SUSE 5.x - i HATED it! Mainly because i went for the full install and was so lost.

I tried 7.x a few years later, console only, and learnt step by step. Now i'm using debian and LOVE it!

[Byock]

Uh, Red Hat 6 I think, Isn't that what I got from you Leech?

[leech]

Sounds about right Never have liked a Red Hat Distro well enough to use it for long though.

Leech

[Ribbit]

I was introduced to Unix/Linux by my dad. He spent most of his time at work with AIX on RS/6000s and wanted a Unix to run at home. So sometime back in the early '90s he pinched a copy of Interactive Unix something-or-other (big stack of 5.25" floppies!) from work and installed it on his PC (25MHz 386, 130MB ESDI drive, either 4 or 12MB of memory, I forget which). He showed me how you could change shells to/from sh and csh, and for a while that was about all I could do with a Unix system!

Naturally he was really excited to find a free Unix clone, and his and my first Linux distro was something no-one will remember, called Nascent Linux (how fitting). It came with kernel version 0.99.something! (But the stack of floppies was now 3.5") From there we went to Yggdrasil (Kernel 1.0.x and 1.1.x, and wow! it came on CD!), then Slackware, and the rest is lost to memory.

[leech]

I guess if you want to look at it this way, Atari TOS was Nixish. (my new word). And the Amiga OS was definitely Nixish. I had used my ol' Atari Mega STe for a long long time. (still have it in fact, now if only I could find a video card and a bigger harddrive for it, and perhaps build a lan cable for it... )

Good to see some really old timers who still use linux successfully.

For those that have been using it forever, do you appreciate the changes that have taken place to linux over the years? Or perhaps still stick the the old command line way of doing everything. (Personally I like the lovely blend of both. Sometimes it's just faster to type in a quick command than to move a mouse across the screen and move through several levels of menus just to find a program.)

Leech