@tomxcd My first Linux was a rebranded Red Hat 6, quickly followed by a proper 7.1 (still got all the discs and manuals somewhere, sadly missing the box, thou), on an old Pentium 166 handed down from my parents. The OSes where fresh and it happened before I got a better system for my 14th birthday, so arround 2000 I guess.

@tomxcd
I was there, Gandalf, 3000 years ago...
When there were no distributions yet.
When the kernel was not modular, but you had do configure&compile your kernel according to your individual hardware.

@tomxcd Luckily it was 2004, which is just one year short of becoming too old. Ubuntu 8, although I must note that I didn't particularly get anywhere with it and had to switch back to Windows. But I still use a Linux toolset on Windows instead of Windows-based ones. And tend to also use a Linux-based one on MacOS when I have to use MacOS... so... yeah. My taste for Linuxy things never went away.

@tomxcd Slackware <2000, came on a handful of 2.5" floppy disks (kernel needed compilation on install).

@tomxcd

I first started dual-booting with Linux around 2002-ish.

Finally switched completely to Linux when I first tried Mint, 2016-ish.

@jens

@tomxcd Install? Somewhere between Oct 2011 and March 2012 (I think early 2012), cuz Ubuntu 11.10 was my first ever exposure to Linux using WUBI

Switch? Around 2019

My main OS was Windows 7 at that time, tried to switch to Windows 10 like 5 times but it was always buggy and slow (especially on a mechanical HDD)

Microsoft announced that they're gonna stop supporting 7 soon, so left with the choice of using a buggy broken OS or biting the bullet and switching to Linux... Yeah

@tomxcd my last year at school i even spent a big portion of my salary on Suse 8.1 (i think it was 2002)

Results were disappointing. Nvidia driver would crash the entire x-server, so i had to reinstall after each attempt. I would not get wine to work.
So i ended up in dual mode. Running Suse when I not wanted to play games, but still boot most of the time this old legacy os that was installed by default.

@tomxcd first try around 1998. using Linux only since 2009. what do I vote in the poll?

@tomxcd
I installed Mandrake Linux first time 2002, but wasn't until 2008 i completely ditched Windows and went linux 100%.

@tomxcd I've voted "In the last 5 years" as I've only really stuck with a Linux system since then, but first tried it out around 2004 and again years later.. Each time it never felt right and I always went back to Windows.. So glad I finally feel comfortable with it and wouldn't want to go back. :)

@tomxcd Phew, I'm not that old. Second thought: Shit, first install was sooner before switching to linux completly so... not really sure?

@tomxcd must have been around 2000, when I installed #Caldera OpenLinux. Caldera is better known as #SCO nowadays, by the way.

It was more or less an attempt to get into touch with linux, which back then was all new to me.
Shortly after, I got a copy of SuSE Linux Professinal 6.4 which was much more appealing to me.

@tomxcd Installed Linux from SUSE CD-ROMs in the late 90s or early 2000s, not sure. But what do you mean with "join Linux"?

@tomxcd@mas.to been using Linux full time for nearly 7 years now
holy fuck it's been a long time
don't regret it tho, Windows used to drive me up the wall, the worst Linux ever did was when the desktop wouldn't load cause I was a not very smart boi and installed a beta version of Qt (so really it was my fault, and it was easy enough to fix so w/e)

@tomxcd
January last year

@tomxcd 1993 / 1994. From floppy disk.

@tomxcd I had to look it up. My first distro was Mandrake linux so it was around 2001-2002. That’s a long time ago!!

@tomxcd I don't remember exactly when, but a neighbour presented me with SUSE 8.1 in a big multi-CD box (I think it was daunting for them / no idea why they would have had it)... and I had a few of the physical Ubuntu 6.04 CDs too (free IIRC?!)

These were not my first encounter, but I also didn't start using Linux "properly" until university...

@tomxcd @gigabecquerel That was in 1993: SLS/Slackware for my CS diploma thesis software which I implemented on my first PC, a 486 with 8 MB memory, quickly upgraded to 16 MB because I wanted to use g++ and X11 at the same time without memory swapping…
It was a huge pile of about sixty 3,5" disks (HD, i.e. 1.44 MB each) downloaded on a Sun 4 SPARCstation at the university.

@tomxcd I'm not old. Linux is.

@tomxcd probably around 2008 or so

@tomxcd thanks for calling me old

@tomxcd my first use of Linux was maybe a 1.1.54 kernel. Certainly remember the 1.3 "Greased Weasel" kernel

@tomxcd I finished German high-/grammar-school 1995, and I think started dabbling into Linux in the last year or so, afterwards working with friends at an ISP which was already Linux only.

First distribution I really used was Slackware, if I remember correctly, but there was a lot of self-compiling these days …

Initially networking was rather poor, so we had some (I forgot) net/free/openbsd boxes for their superior networking, especially filtering/firewalling.

Oh, happy days!

@tomxcd
If I remember well, first contact was in 1996, with redhat and kernel version < 2.0. Not very successful (no internet at home at that time)

Full switch was in 1999, on debian.

(ouch...)

@tomxcd my first install was a SUSE verson which I don´t remember, but it came on many, many 3.5" floppy disks ...

@tomxcd It's not that I'm "Holy shit, you're old" that gets me, it's the fact that 2012 is "A long time ago". That really makes me feel like time has passed me by.

@tomxcd I don't feel *that* old yet 😄 But it was around mid- to end-90s: Slackware Linux on some magazine cover CD. It was shortly after I gave up my Amiga (shame on me) to get a PC and felt pretty disappointed by DOS and Windows, so I was looking for alternatives.

@tomxcd there was a whole wave of Gentoo installs in one of my friends groups... Probably around 2002-2005.

I'm not _that_ old thanks... 🤣

@tomxcd @gigabecquerel when I was quite young back in 2003 I tried Lindows, got bored, didn’t understand it and couldn’t do much without a good internet connection anyway. Fast-forward to a couple of months ago and I finally tried it again, this time Manjaro on a spare laptop.

@tomxcd Wasn't Linux, but my BSDi install tapes (QIC150) were dated 1992.

Prior to that I was running Andrew Tanenbaum's Minix still have a signed copy of his 1987 book.

@tomxcd i voted 2010 Linux. But i was 1997 for FreeBSD.

@tomxcd Linux: about 2001 on the Deloitte attack laptops (pen testing). Fedora. Later (2006 maybe) ubuntu as it was the first to support the free vmware server that wasn't RH or Suse iirc.

FreeBSD: since it was 386BSD in the early 90's, installed from 40 x 1.44mb floppy disks. Still prefer it over linux tbh.

@tomxcd
SuSE 5.0 was my first, I think. So 1997, which checks out re other steps in my life around that time (spent all summer on a BBS via telnet)

@tomxcd 1994-2003 I tried to avoid Windows and used Linux a few times, ygadarisil and Mandrake mainly, before sticking with MacOS for home use. Used it all the time at work since about 2009.

@tomxcd

".. install AND join Linux?"

Installed around "holy shit" times, and still using occasionally. But wouldn't claim I've joined linux or its community yet.

@tomxcd Holy shit you're young.

I didn't get around to Linux until 1998. I installed UNIX on PDP-11s in 1982-83, and was mucking up the kernel by '83. Graduated and started getting paid to muck up the kernel in '84. Didn't have my own computer (a Mac) until 1992.

@tomxcd yellow dog Linux on an eMac for me

@tomxcd Fond memories of downloading the Gentoo min install ISO in either late 2000 or early 2001 at a blistering 6 kbit/sec.

EDIT: First set of dates were correct, I started with one of the 1.0rc builds.

@tomxcd It was in the early 2000s, when I was in university. All of my CCCB friends used this instant messenger. What was it called 🤔, ah, 💡Jabber. Well, the client went more smoothly with Linux and also LaTeX worked like a charm for printing my thesis. So, heck, I had no reason to continue to use Windows. 🤷

@tomxcd truly the only metric by which I’m apparently old 😢

@tomxcd Used Corel Linux back in ~1995 then used Red Hat Linux until they made Fedora Core in ~2003 then Debian in 2004 and Ubuntu in 2005. Stayed with Ubuntu since then. Worked on it for Canonical for 9 years. Still using it many years later.

@tomxcd There was an awesome Slackware variant called Minilinux which fit in 4 floppy disks and installed non-destructively over MS-DOS.

@tomxcd I started using Linux in 2003 I think 🤔, but my friend installed it. First self-installed Linux could be 2005. And since 2012 I'm getting paid for installing Linux systems 🙃

@tomxcd My first taste of Linux was Mandrake 7.1, bought off the shelf from Staples. Had no idea what I was doing and didn't try Linux again until 2012 and Linux Mint. Haven't looked back.

@tomxcd the only reason I don't make it into the "holy shit, you're old" category is because I spent a lot of my early career installing SunOS and Solaris rather than Linux.

@tomxcd around 2002 with some Suse 6.x, then Slackware for many years, then Ubuntu because I got lazy, then Mint to flee from snap's crap

@tomxcd
@popey
Properly, in the last 2 years that I use it for my daily driver on my personal laptop (to the point that I kept sending back a laptop that wasn't working properly with Linux). I did play about with Linux in the days of the first @Raspberry_Pi (but couldn't tell you what version of Ubuntu that was).

@tomxcd when Bob Tinker and I started Concord Consortium, an educational non-profit focused on science education in 1996 I went to the MIT bookstore and got a book about Linux that had cdroms containing a Slack distribution. Installed that on a dedicated server connected with a dedicated 56kbps modem, setup domain name, email and initial web page all hosted at concord.org. There was lots to figure out!

@tomxcd

I don't remember whether it was 2003 or 2004. One of my teachers gave me a copy of Knoppix to try, and then a few other distros. They were all notably buggy and NTFS support was questionable, so I didn't stick with it back then.

@tomxcd @popey I started with Kubuntu in 2013 and have been distrohopping ever since !

@tomxcd Ubuntu 9.10 :frog_cozy:

@tomxcd I started on Ubuntu in 2018, in 2019 I continued with Manjaro until 2020 and since then, I'm on openSUSE.

@tomxcd 1995 / 96, Slackware and then redhat/alpha on a DEC Multia.

@tomxcd It was definitely the early 2000s, but I started in open OSes with FreeBSD. I got tired of fighting with graphics drivers, esp. with dual monitors, so I moved to OpenSUSE. Currently on Arch.

@tomxcd there were a number of failed attempts before finally achieving success with Yggdrasil in 1994. Still have the install/setup guide!

So I'm approaching older than old I think! 😄

@tomxcd SuSE 11/95 . I held off when the Linux install was a buzillion floppies, but they sent me a free CDRom for writing 'discdate/ddate' and 'Xtacy' . #OfficiallyOld

@tomxcd

Internet libre = free internet !

I already explained Linux in 2006 (the back guy in black).

@tomxcd switched from Win311 to OS/2, tried WinNT, installed Suse Linux, then Debian. Not even dual boot since 2002.

@tomxcd My first #Slackware came as a stash of HD disks and featured kernel 0.99p[bunchOfNumbers].

@tomxcd That last category is very broad. When I first saw Linux in '92 it was very primitive; when I bought my first PC for Linux in '94 it had a useful desktop; by '98 a lot of IT people knew of it and a fair chunk had one doing something.

@tomxcd I remember being inordinately proud of getting winmodem to work in the nineties 😆

@tomxcd First #Knoppix life in 2002, then #SuSE beside Windows XP until 2005, when I dropped M$.

@tomxcd 1997. Started with computer stuff back in 1985 (C64) / 1986 (Atari ST). First PC 1994, DOS, Win 3.11, WinNT.

@tomxcd Initial S.U.S.E. 5.0 ans since than tryed several times, but still using Windows as main OS. Thanks to the Raspberry PI I've got now more Linux based machines than Windows ones. ;)

@tomxcd I'm old. And I have now gone full circle with my first installation of Red Hat Linux in the 90's to now working at Red Hat.

@tomxcd
1997 with SuSE 5.0, later Debian, Knoppix, Ubuntu, since 2018 Arch

@tomxcd I votein the last ten years, for when I joined fully, I think, in 2017.

Though I had an Ubuntu installation as far back as 2012 though I didn't stick with it because I was frustated by how things didn't work like Windows (I didn't even know what package managers were back then so I had the intuition that executables worked exactly like on Windows, so imagine my frustation of not managing to run Linux M.U.G.E.N. by clicking the executable)

@tomxcd I installed Red Hat 5.1 off a Personal Computer World(?) magazine. Big red CD...irresistable!

@tomxcd I did my own first install in the last 10 years, I think, around 2015. I was just out of school and about to enter college.

@tomxcd Slackware 1.01.

@tomxcd I started in 2005 with Linspire 5.0. Switched to Ubuntu quite soon after that. Tried a few other distro's in the course of the years, but always returned/stuck to Ubuntu.

@tomxcd My first Linux was SLS 0.98 in 1992!

@tomxcd I’ve known about Linux since the mid nineties, but, that’s because my guy friends were CompE majors running their own machines.

Didn’t make much sense for me to switch stuff up when I was still learning FORTRAN.

@tomxcd must have been SuSe 6.3 (and Freesco , but that was just using a single floppy, not really installing anything)

@tomxcd Ubuntu Feisty Fawn in 2007 when I was 17

@tomxcd 2005, Debian/KDE. (Semi-old 😅)

had to mute the notifs on this thing :aqua_aaa:

@tomxcd

This...
https://mastodon.social/@simon_lucy/110492201559027720

@tomxcd
in 1996 I bought my first computer; a used 486sx with a hard drive I believed was bad. I bought another used hard drive from someone else. I couldn't afford any OS that required money, and so linux was what I installed. (yeah, I could have done what everyone did and obtained an illegitimate copy of Windows, but I avoided such things as much as possible).

@tomxcd ask me about my SCO Xenix or ESIX. Ran those until I found out about Linux in the early 90s. My boss at the university read about one of the BSDs getting open sourced and free, and we installed that. Of course there was Minix - and gave that a spin. Good times.

@tomxcd Slackware around 1994 on a 386

@tomxcd actually on FreeBSD as of 2002 but went to Ubuntu after thoroughly tiring of FreeBSD's idea of a packaging system at the time

@tomxcd The moment when "1997 is 10 years ago, so I'm checking the second option"

@tomxcd it was SuSE 6.0, bought it in the book store

@tomxcd first install was much longer, but joined in 2019 and never looked back.

@tomxcd Inspired by @codepope's article in PCW, I installed Linus's original boot/root pair of images shortly after he bumped the version number to 0.95? Then, in very short order, the MCC interim distribution put together by Ian Pallfreeman at the Manchester Computing Centre. I think I might still have the QIC tapes somewhere.

@tomxcd tried it during uni when I had free time, now I don't have the time or energy so windows/mac it is

@tomxcd Every year or so I'll install it on a spare machine, daily it, then break something critical and revert back to windows 😂

@tomxcd first distro I used is long since defunct, Definite Linux. Way back in 2000. Came free on Linux Format IIRC.

@tomxcd

Mail ordered about 1995, can't remember the distro name, probably lost to history now, it did come with an onion-paper tomb as a manual and a bunch of CDs.

@tomxcd Ye Olde Farte strikes again! :-)
Slackware on (small number of) 3.5" floppy discs.
I /did/ need some help entering network details into conf file/s...

@tomxcd Fedora 1 was my first... So 2003... So only just old 😅

@tomxcd I first installed Red Hat 7 to dual boot with Windows ME. Yes, that's a long time ago.

@tomxcd I joined Linux about less than 3 years ago :s
It is a start though, because I'll be using it for the rest of my time.