While we run an annual set of polls called the Members Choice Awards, I thought it might be fun to run some semi-official polls periodically throughout the year. Unlike the MCA's these polls will have no set end date and you can see the results real-time. First up, what was your first Linux distribution? Feel free to post, but do make sure to vote as well. If you'd like a distribution added, let us know (although do keep in mind it's simply not possible to include every distribution). If you have any suggestions for a future poll, feel free to post in this LQS&F thread.

--jeremy

Slackware 3.0 (1995)

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Mine was Shoestring, a port of Red Hat to the Motorola 68000 architecture. That was on a Q60 with the M68060, when the Mac was only using the 68040!

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I tried red hat. It wouldnt see terminals on the serial port. Got a bunch of versions on cd and tried. Slack ware was awesome. 8 terminals on rs232, ip terminals, local terms all worked. Ran a web and file server for over 5 years on it. only rebooted 3 times when had to move machine. Windows requires a daily reboot.

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Mine was Slackware from the 90's. First distro as a real linux user was Redhat pre-Fedora. Had to install RH7 on the computers in a lab at the two year college where I used to work. Install was via lilo with RH7 and Messywindows. Made a basic image and then ghosted the lab. Had to rerun lilo on odd sized drives.

Lindows, Inc. transferred the Lindows trademark to Microsoft and changed its name to Linspire, Inc. The first Linux distro I ran here was Linspire, back in 2005. Came "pre-installed" on a cheap notebook from Walmart. Debian-based.

My first distro was Caldera OpenLinux 2.3. Caldera later morphed into SCO.

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The first distro I tried was Knoppix live cd back around 2005. I was blown away by how advanced something that booted from a cd and ran in ram alone could be and I really loved the Kde desktop. I never tried to install it and don't think there was even that option at the time. I voted for PcLinux because it was the first I installed in early 2007 and used exclusively everyday. I found it on a website I believe was called the "live cd list". I can say it was the most flawless distro I ever used until the switch to Kde4 then not so much. I still use Pclinux as my anchor system on my multiboot system but mostly run Slackware currently.

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SLS - 45 floppy disks downloaded using a 2400 baud modem over a weekend. 8-)

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Got the first install CD of SuSE Linux 7.3 from a magazine, shortly after that 8.0 was released, I bought the professional version, with 7 CDs, 1 DVD and a nice handbook. Sadly, I don't have that package anymore.

I intentionally answered a slightly different question than you asked. I answered "Mepis", which was the first Linux distribution in which I successfully used a Linux computer as a tool for getting other things done, rather than just as a means of learning Linux.

I had used Linux several years before, even successfully modified device drivers, but I never got to the point that Linux was effective as a means of doing other things. Before I found Mepis for my home use, I also used Linux many times at work (with lots of on site help from a Linux expert) to port code AFTER developing that code very portably on Windows. Then I tried many Linux distributions at home, in some cases getting them semi usable.

But Linux as a tool for Linux centric goals has always seemed lame to me. An OS should be easy enough to use, that you are thinking about whatever you are using the computer for and rarely thinking about the OS itself. I reached that point quickly with Mepis, after never really getting there with any other distribution.

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I chose Fedora Core 4 even tho my first distro was Linspire, because Linspire didn't work and I kept it for less than 24 hours.

Slackware 7.1 CD bought from the local bookstore.

You forgot

MinGW and CygWin
i used those before installing Fedora 4

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My first was a retail boxed version of Red Hat Linux from the late '90s, I think it was version 6.0.

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