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**JohanLingen** · Nov 12, 2009, 04:37 PM

Re: What was the first linux disro you ever used

I remember trying to install Red Hat (version??) to an old Tulip. I think I had to compile a kernel... at least, I didn't understand it so I abandoned. For a while I helped administer a network with a brand new Debian Woody and Win2K workstations (later WinXP).
The first linux desktop for personal use came with Kubuntu Dapper Drake. It was a bit of a plunge into the deep (I uninstalled Windows), but after a week or two weeks, I liked it better then Windows XP already!

**Telengard** · Nov 12, 2009, 05:10 PM

Re: What was the first linux disro you ever used

Some ancient version of Red Hat years ago on my brother's computer. KDE was a new thing back then and he couldn't get it compiled, so it was command line only.

**Telengard** · Nov 12, 2009, 05:12 PM

Re: What was the first linux disro you ever used

Sorry for the double post. It was a network problem on my end

**sithlord48** · Nov 12, 2009, 05:22 PM

Re: What was the first linux disro you ever used

the first time i used linux (or tired to ) it was a version of red hat (can't remember what one) but i do remember it took forever to download the nessessary files, on my friends dial-up service(it was his computer). the computer was a 233 mhz beast w/ 64 mb of ram and a 6GB hd, it ran ok my friend had chosen to install the KDE desktop (think it was kde 1.x). and we fiddled around with it for a few weeks before returning to windows when my friend got his win98Se disk. i used it quite a bit since i didn't have a computer of my own and i was there often because it was near by. i liked the interface i remember there was a four panel desktop "wall" if you will and virtual desktops, at that time a completely new thing to me as i had only used dos,appleII,mac os,win3.1-98 that i had used before. it was crude, but i like (as a computer-science student) that everything was open source, since before that i could not accually look at the code that for most of what was running on the computer. loved it ever since

edit:fixed some sentences..

**GreyGeek** · Nov 12, 2009, 07:40 PM

Re: What was the first linux disro you ever used

On December 29, 1997, I purchased a brand new Sony VAIO desktop, which came with Win95 preinstalled. I had been using OS/2 on my previous PC and OS/2 was a fast and stable OS. I ran Win 3.1 FWG under OS/2 as a guest OS, which is what I used most of the time as a development platform. Win95 was not fast or stable. Even though Sony had installed a "Medi-Kit" between the BIOS and Win95 in order to catch the crashes and attempt a phantom restart, a plain old fashion crash was usually the result. I got into the habit of saving every 5 minutes or sooner just so I wouldn't lose so much work. Well, between Jan 1, 1998 and May 1, 1998 I had to reinstall Win95 FIVE times because it crashed so much (averaged about one crash every 15 minutes) and became so corrupted. I was very mad at SONY because I thought I had wasted my money on an expensive machine which, it appeared, was no better than the cheaper computers I usually bought.

I decided to return to OS/2 and went to Barnes & Noble, which usually carried OS packages at the time, to look for the latest OS/2 package. I saw a paperback book titled "Learn Linux in 24 Hours" by Bill Brush, for $24.95. It had a Red Hat 5.0 CD in the back. An OS for $25 instead of $125? Why not, I thought, I'll give it a try. I installed it in dual boot and began going through the lessons, one hour each. About 30 or 40 hours later I felt I "knew" RH well enough to get along.

My first two observations were: RH 5.0 is much faster on that Sony than Win95. Much faster. And, RH 5.0 was rock solid stable, so that meant that the Sony was rock solid stable too. From May 1st to the first week in September that Sony never crashed once while I was running RH. I spent as much time as possible in RH. RH was very geeky. I had to compile Tulip drivers, written by some NASA guy, for my Bonanza eth cards. I had to install video drivers for the ATI card and the ATI Wonder TV card, and I had to install OSS drivers for my SB16 sound card. I also found out that my Sony really hummed if I recompiled my kernel specifically for my hardware. That was fun! 8)

Around the 1st of September I heard about an upgrade, RH 5.1. I installed it. Total disaster. My Sony started crashing again. I thought about reinstalling RH 5.0 but by chance saw an ad for SuSE in a computer mag (I forget which one). I don't remember the version number but instead of using fw95 as its xclient it featured the beta release of a new Linux desktop, KDE 1.0 beta. The pics were beautiful, and made even Win95 look old and cheap. I ordered it (WindRiver) and installed it. It was FANTASTIC! I fell in love with SuSE & KDE immediately and my love for KDE has never wavered. I would probably be still running SuSE if Novell hadn't bought it. Between that day In September of 1998 and the day Novell bought SuSE I purchased 22 BOXED sets of SuSE. My last purchase was ver 8.0, IIRC, and it was on that Sony when I gave it to an elderly lady in the church who need to do email and write letters. A several years later when my wife and I visited her she was still running that PC and SuSE.

On Jan 1, 2000 I scrubbed Windows off of my next PC and gave SuSE the entire HD. I stayed Linux only until March of 2005, when an ag engineering friend asked me to write a fly-by-wire control system for his new kind of ag tractor. I've been running dual boot since then until I discovered in June that the dev tool I was using would run under CodeWeaver's CrossoverOffice version of WINE.

So, now I am running with the 64bit version of Kubuntu 9.10 as my only OS this this Sony notebook.

After SuSE I tried and used several distros: besides a few lessor known distros I spent some time with Knoppix, Kanotex, LibraNet, Debian, XANDROS, Fedora, Mandrake, MEPIS, PCLinuxOS, Mandriva and finally Kubuntu, pretty much in that order. I spent a couple years with Mandrake, until ver 10 began burning optical drives. I spent a year with MEPIS, then over two years with PCLinuxOS. then 6 months with Mandriva before I moved to Kubuntu in Feb of this year.

This 64bit Kubuntu 9.10 is farf and away the best Linux distro I have ever used. I rank it faster, more stable and more useful than ANY OS I have ever used, and that includes Apple ][+, OS/2, Win94, NT3.5, NT4, Win2K, XP or VISTA.

**Guest** · Nov 15, 2009, 01:42 AM

Re: What was the first linux disro you ever used

I think I started out with Mandrake 7.0 and then on to Red Hat. I've run the course of Mepis, SuSe, Knoppix, etc. Most of the distros everyone else has tried. I tried Ubuntu when it first came out. I remember signing up for 5 free cds, and I gave 4 of those to others. I really never liked Gnome though, and didn't stay with Ubuntu. For awhile I went to exclusively XP, but every so often I would pop in to DistroWatch and check new Linux versions. I found PCLOS, which I love and use for my main tower. I ran across Kubuntu and gave it try, and I'm liking what I see so far.

**Ole Juul** · Nov 15, 2009, 02:25 AM

Re: What was the first linux disro you ever used

I first downloaded a floppy set of Slackware 2.0.0 using Linux 1.0.9 around 1994. It was able to use a herc mono card with one of those lovely IBM 5151 monitors. However it was really over my head because I didn't understand much about networking yet.

I joined the Vancouver Linux User's Group around '98 and tried Redhat 5.1 with better luck, but it wasn't until about 2002 when Debian 3.0 (Woody) came that I started using Linux every day because it became necessary for browsing the net.

**Ole Juul** · Nov 15, 2009, 02:31 AM

Re: What was the first linux disro you ever used

Originally posted by Bren_R

. . . I ran across Kubuntu and gave it try, and I'm liking what I see so far.

Welcome Brenda! You'll like these forums too.

**MoonRise** · Nov 15, 2009, 06:48 AM

Re: What was the first linux disro you ever used

Ubuntu 4.10 (Warty Warthog); then when I heard about Kubuntu I switched and have never looked back. I do use Puppy USB boot but that is for system recovery stuff @ work on M$ machines.

**Qqmike** · Nov 15, 2009, 08:38 AM

Re: What was the first linux disro you ever used

1st time Linux was Kubuntu 6.04, Oct 2006.

I had XP since Nov 2005 (when I did my first PC build), installed 6.04 using a CD a friend sent me. I was on dial-up at the time, couldn't get Kubuntu to use my dial-up modem (I had the software Win modem or whatever it was, not the hardware type of modem, and it didn't play well). That motivated me to get Earthlink's DSL connection. Been on Kubuntu ever since. Tried a couple dozen others, sidux wins second best. Actually, sidux works better, frankly, much better for me; but I have liked the look and feel of Kubuntu better, and I like the Kubuntu community better. I'm told the new sidux is very much improved all the way around, though, but haven't had time to try it. My Kubuntu 8.04.3 works absolutely perfectly for everything I need right now, so it's my main OS at the time. I boot into XP once every month or two to run updates and A-V checks and ad nauseum, just to keep it current, but I don't know why really. Gee, wasn't that fascinating!

Funny how we each think our story is so special ...

**ukchucktown** · Nov 15, 2009, 09:09 AM

Re: What was the first linux disro you ever used

That was such a long time ago I'm not even sure I remember. I think it was Slackware back in 1994 or 1995. I had been using Sun OS for about 2 years at work after graduating college and jumped on board early when I heard the rumblings in the community.

**Snowhog** · Nov 15, 2009, 02:33 PM

Re: What was the first linux disro you ever used

My initial attempt using Linux was with Debian 3.0 (Woody) - the seven CD set! I had expressed an interest in trying Linux, and my Dad suggested Debian, and bought me the set for my (then) birthday. That was back in 2003 or 2004 IIRC. It was a struggle to figure out and get installed and working on my (then) Sony VAIO laptop. I did eventually get a working Internet connection via my 3Com 10/100LAN PC Card. I even attempted to set-up a dual-boot with the OEM Windows 98 SE. I had no experience doing that and although I searched the 'net and tried numerous scenarios and boot managers, I never got it to work successfully. Dumped Debian and didn't return to Linux until 2007.

I still had the Sony VAIO, but it was showing it's age, so I purchased my Toshiba Satellite P105-S6147 laptop. Vista Home Edition was pre-installed, and I decided that I wanted to try Linux again. I had heard of Ubuntu and Kubuntu. I liked the looks of Kubuntu (more *Windoze* like in appearance, which appealed to me, having been (and still am at work) a Windoze user exclusively), so downloaded and burned the LiveCD of Kubuntu Edgy Eft.

As I had two laptops now, I opted to dump Windoze 98 on the Sony and install Kubuntu Edgy on it. That was the beginning of my adventure with Linux. I progressed from there all the way up to Kubuntu Karmic 9.10, which unfortunately, I had to dump in favor of a reinstalled Kubuntu Jaunty 9.04, as Karmic and my Intel GPU 'don't get along.'

The Sony 'is no more,' and my Toshiba is now my only PC. My Kubuntu Jaunty 9.04 works perfectly on it! It's a beautiful thing. 8)

**frenchrh** · Nov 15, 2009, 04:38 PM

Re: What was the first linux disro you ever used

I started with Red Hat 4.1 in February 1997, on a 386, IBM PS2 computer. And then ran Red Hat up into the version 6's. (I had been using IBM OS/2 before starting to use linux).

And then I shifted to Suse Linux around version 6.1, as Red Hat stopped paying attention to the Desktop. I then have used Suse through the 9.x versions, and shifted to OpenSuse. All running KDE.

I've watched Ubuntu, in its successes in the past years, but always stayed with OpenSuse due to its great KDE desktop.

Then with my recent netbook purchase, I tried out Ubuntu Netbook Remix. (I've been recommending Ubuntu to newbies for a while, but always used OpenSuse myself). UNR 9.04 has been good on my Asus Eee PC 1005ha.

And now finally the Kubuntu 9.10, and the KDE4.3.3 desktop, KDE seems so fine, in comparison to the simplified Gnome desktop, that my netbook is Kubuntu.

But I'm still mostly an OpenSuse 11.2 person, with about 10 desktops running that, which are all basically accessing large High Performance Computing (HPC) clusters of linux boxes.

I'm a scientist, and do alot of heavy computation, and OpenSuse still has the deeper set of packaged software when compared to Ubuntu. For example I can load FreeCad from my RPM repositories, but can't find a .deb package that works for Kubuntu 9.10.

So that's my story over the past 12.75 years.

regards Roger

**GreyGeek** · Nov 16, 2009, 04:31 PM

Re: What was the first linux disro you ever used

Originally posted by frenchrh

.....
I'm a scientist, and do alot of heavy computation, and OpenSuse still has the deeper set of packaged software when compared to Ubuntu. For example I can load FreeCad from my RPM repositories, but can't find a .deb package that works for Kubuntu 9.10.

So that's my story over the past 12.75 years.

regards Roger

Nothing like flashing the word "scientist" to get an old researcher's blood up. I did my graduate research in anti-cancer metabolites on a Welch Foundation research grant. (Publish or parish sort of thing). The "rubber hot dog" I developed was 3-Amino-3,4-dihydro-1-hydroxy carbostyril. Most attempting to synthesize it got less than 1% yield. I found a way to get better than 99% yield. It turned out NOT to be effective as a cancer treatment but it was/is a safe broad spectrum anti-biotic at 1 ppm agaist E-coli and several other pathogens. Since all my work done under a Welch Foundation grant is public domain the pharmas looked at it but wouldn't touch it because they couldn't patent it. They were looking for an analogue that they could patent. My thesis showed the complete synthesis pathway but they couldn't replicate it because of one environmental condition that my major professor recommended I not publish. So I didn't. My first job out of grad school was teaching at a small mid-west college. It paid less than the Welch grant did. I sure miss research.

You said you do a lot of computation. What area are you researching?
GG

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What was the first linux disro you ever used

What was the first linux disro you ever used

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