Well,

The first linux distro I installed was Red Hat 4.0 in the mid-90's (which I later found out was really a "preview" release... Hence, we get the saying: "Never trust a x.0 release!" ;-p hehe) and quickly followed that up with Red Hat 4.2!

My first experience with linux was when I had started at a new company and the Exec-VP sat me down at the owner's system and handed me the book "Unix Made Easy" (about 4 inches thick and didn't look easy! :-p hehe), told me to follow his Post-It note bookmarks and left. The bookmarks he had in the book covered the FSH, permissions, file manipulation and 'vi'. Well, he came back at about noon to see how I was doing, and I had already gotten a pretty good handle on basic operation with 'vi'/'vim', and had even found 'man' and 'fortune' on my own.

The real selling point for me with linux was when that same Exec-VP came into my office and put a dusty, nasty 386 system on my desk, said "The hard drive is making noise." and left. I booted the system to a liveCD, chrooted in and, just to check, did an uptime... and it said 2576 days!!! I was pretty sure that it had to be wrong, so I went down to the Exec-VP's office and asked, "It says an uptime of 2576 days... That can't be right, can it?" He did some quick calculations in his head and said, "About 7 years? Yeah, that sounds about right." To me that was unbelievable!!! A computer could run without reboot for 7 years? You'd *never* get something like that from M$!!! So, apart from a few (*ahem* holdout... *cough, cough*) game developers, I have been loving linux and have never looked back.

Penguinus Potestate!

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Good question. I guess. Just opened my Practice and deciding which O/S after Windows 98. A few years later, Windows or Linux? Eventually, decided, I guess, on Windows. Must purchase hardware to install XP.
Then after having constant problems with the XP O/S on my Compaq, before merger or purchase, installed SUSE accidentally. Trying to Test it out.
Finally, free after rebate, Linspire.

Take your pick. As to which one was first.

Slackware 11 (2006)

Redhat 5.2
About 1998

live CD Feather Linux for my "Other" vote.

I loaded Slackware 8.1 in Nov 2002. I chose it because it was a Friday afternoon at work and I just had my first always on internet connection installed at home and I wanted a Linux server for home. My plan was to install Linux that evening and Slackware was the fastest to download distro that afternoon. It is still my distro of choice for my home workstation.

I recall Redhat 5 being the first nix distro I ever played with. I struggled a lot with that and gave it up for a while. Mostly use Debian these days.

It was an early versión of Debian before Windows 98.

I started with Redhat 7, right around 2000 when I was in high school.

Red Hat in 1996, version number might have been 3.0.0.3 or something like. It was a bit conservative - only recognizing ide0 and ide1. Since for some reason my Pentium Pro could only boot from ide2, which held Windows, I had to install on ide0 and chainload from DOS. Switching to Mandrake 7.2 solved that one. RedHat presented an experimental version of KDE which I took a look at and dropped like a hot potato. In those days it was aimed at making refugee Windows users feel comfortable and since I never felt comfortable with Windows it was a definite no-no. Long live UNIX!

A friend gave me a multi-floppy disc set of Mandrake back in 2001 or so. I never installed them, though. The first time I actually logged into my own GNU/Linux operating system on one of my own machines was in the summer of 2006. It was Ubuntu 6.06 "Dapper Drake". I even still have a screenie of it...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...apperDrake.png

I experimented heavily with numerous distributions from that point on. At one time, I had 18 distributions installed on my main system and 11 on my shop system. I quickly settled on Slackware (by October of '06) and have used nothing else as my main OS since then. I still keep other distributions on my systems, though. I do not use virtual applications. My tester distributions are installed on their own partitions and booted using GRUB in Slackware on my main system, and LILO from Slackware on my shop system. I boot with GRUB on my main system because I've had issues in the past trying to boot multiple operating systems across multiple drives with LILO.

Anyway, it's been a lot of fun. I don't miss that other operating system at all.

Later...

~Eric

Lycoris, because I never got good at re-installing Windows.
Then Mandrake, then Slackware - IIRC it was 9.0. Never looked back.

Red Hat 3.x

Osborne Linux 3RD Edition book 1996 which had Caldara open linux2.2 AND, redhat 6.. .have disc , do not remember getting it working..
2003 RED HAT 9. my friend and I took their on line course [ had to buy real modems [not cheap winmodem]] got it working and learning when RH went to a yearly 125 a year fee byby RH.
. ubunutu 7.04 ,7.1 64 bit no go ,, noticed some one else mentioned PC Linux[64 bit worked ] but did not know what to add to make it usable...
. during my rebuilding day's I ran out of free 98 copies so tried . yellow dog , damn small , and 10 other small linux's , but know one wanted a free rebuilt comp with linux ..
have been trying Ubuntu every year unsuccessfully UNTIL , 12.04.1 LTS .. yes . a winner .. I know Unity is not liked by others , but , It works for me , ran on it's first load , i Have gotten sound and dvd's , internet , zip , PDF , all working and usable by dumb me . I am happy , it is a Long Term Solution so will be supported four more years .

You remind me I still have a copy of the 4TH edition in my bookcase -- it has Red Hat© Linux 7 and Caldera OpenLinux eDesktop 2.4 discs included -- I don't think I ever tried them though and I have lost them now.