Slackware, CD tha came whith a magazine here in Italy I think '95 year. You had to compile the kernel and many aplications. I read a lot, learn a lot and got a lot of help of two friends, one ingenier and programmer, the other one junior system admin. It was fun.


It was A long time ago in galaxy far, far away :p

It was before Fedora Core started. I installed Red Hat 7.2 as a friend of mine told me to check it out.
I did and fiddled around with it for a couple of hours and didn't understand s**t.
I removed it but some months later, can't recall how many I returned to it and have since been checking Linux out, loving it more and more.
If was putting way more time into it I would be so much better at it and possibly having a job doing nothing but this.

re: what I remember about first install
 

I tried Ubuntu 14.04 for the first time in 2014. It worked well - eventually. Almost nothing worked right out of the box. It took LOTS and LOTS of work. And I had to reinstall a number of times.

I also tried Mint and soon gave up on it. Nothing works the way it does in Ubuntu and the Mint forums standard answer was "reinstall". I don't think so. If I wanted an unstable system I can't count on and I lose my files, I'd install Windows 8 or 10! Maybe they've gotten over it in the intervening five years, but people like that have a permanent personality disorder.

After all of that, my experiences installing Ubuntu 18.04 have been a pleasant surprise. There are a couple of bugs, mostly with video drivers, and those are serious. Do you really want to make people replace perfectly functional monitors and cables and video cards that had no trouble in Windows? Really? I think there are some people at Canonical sadly in need of getting over themselves... But everything else worked right out of the box. At work, Ubuntu even found, set up the driver and connected itself to the network printer!

My first Linux install didn't go well.

Must have been in the fall of 2000. I was learning to help my cousin with his web hosting company, which was using Red Hat.
My day job was doing development and data migration from a mainframe system to a multi-tiered environment that had Solaris as the back end, with Windows servers in the middle tier and serving Windows clients. The development tools I was using were Windows-based. I was telecommuting from Arizona to Northern California using my own laptop.

We decided to install Linux as dual-boot on my Dell Laptop. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts, we selected the option that reformatted the entire hard drive, wiping out the entire Windows installation. After a couple of days of panic, we managed to re-install Windows, and I had my client in California ship me copies of the software I needed to continue my work.

I didn't get back to trying a Linux desktop until about a year ago, after I retired, although I've been running the web hosting company, now running CentOS, since ~2002.

Putting Red Hat 5 on a generic thin client without an X-Windows manager and having it act as a remote terminal for a Sun SparcStation in a manufacturing facility. The glory days.

Yggdrasil
 

My first Linux installation was of Yggdrasil Linux, using a CD I brought home from a conference. Can't remember the year but it was early in the 1990s.

I was so excited to have a working alternative to Windows. I have been a Linux fan and user ever since. I have not used Windows for years.

Yeah, I was trying Mandrake (don't remember what version and Red Hat 7.1. I had a Pentium MMX with 32MB RAM, 30 GiB HDD that my old Windows 95 only saw 8 GiB's of (I heard it was common problem with Windows listening to the BIOS for information of HDD's, but Linux just talked straight to hardware.
The problem was that I get Red Hat 7.1 installed, but startx (which was the common way to start X11 Windows and GUI - not many distro installed a graphical login manager, like XDM/GDM/etc., by default. Wanted it, you needed to install and configure it yourself.

Yeah, I was trying Mandrake (don't remember what version and Red Hat 7.1. I had a Pentium MMX with 32MB RAM, 30 GiB HDD that my old Windows 95 only saw 8 GiB's of (I heard it was common problem with Windows listening to the BIOS for information of HDD's.

The thing is, even though this Red Hat 7.1 had the coolest automated text-UI based tool for configuring X for your videocard, and it did list the exact card of mine, Hercules Stingray 128 3D (Voodoo Rush), but it NEVER worked right. The best my and my remote friend who talked to me on phone and was trying to configure it via SSH was the black/white raster background and the default X cursor, but even that seemed funny and we couldn't get further. Most of the time no graphics came up when he told me to try.
I booted it into Linux couple times and kept it on for days, just for the thrill it was actually a Linux, but then I started booting to Win95 again.

Then I bought a new computer and used that HDD (left the old one with only it's original 3.6 GiB HDD.).
I tried to make sure that every hardware I get is supported, though the video drivers were proprietary (but easy to install back then, you just had to remember, if you ran update and kernel was updated, to compile the driver against latest kernel headers.
Also I had Sound Blaster 128, which had no officially accepted in Kernel drivers. Sure, it worked fine with older SB drivers, but the only way to get the ALSO SB 128 driver support was apparently to patch the kernel and recompile it. Dam, I learn fast with computers, but I was too afraid it was over my head. Then when I first recompiled the kernel myself (for better compiler directive for optimization for performance), it was a piece of cake.

Since that I've not gone back.

It's kinda funny that you could've replaced the graphical environment (I'm certain they ran X Window Server, just their proprietary GUI on top of it) any of the many (even back then) UI's (well, just WM's (
[Window Manager] and DE's [Desktop Environment] and screw their proprietary GUI :D

That's a humongous HDD, unless you mean 10 or 100M, not 10G!? I mean, on a machine with monochrome X11? I mean, almost any distro can be installed with full desktop to 10GB - with some there's even a load of space left after that.

Not being able to get Minecraft to work purely because I didn't know what I was doing. Also better performance once I did figure it out. I was running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on some old C2D latitude laptop.

I remember nothing working. I tried a handful of different distos, hashed to make sure I had good downloads. It was a nightmare. I gave up for 5 years then I tried again. Been solid since.

Those were the days.

I had played with linux on a friends computer but finally purchased a multi CD set with Red Hat 4.x? and a few others at the Los Angles County fair grounds computer swap meet back around 1994. There were 2 or 3 buildings full of computer equipment, software, video games etc. and other stuff...
Back in the days where RAM was quite expensive.

First time install
 

I decided to install a dual boot with Windows 10. Actually very easy. It was actually more complicated to set up my printer. Went even easier with a full install on a lenovo t440 used laptop. I love Ice and Wine accept I am a bit bummed Wine won't run Quickbooks Pro desktop.

I remember trying about 5 times before installing Caldera Linux from disc on my HDD without overwriting Win95 or 98. Then manually installing KDE from online using dialup modem.

I had downloaded Linux Mint 18.3 and I was sure that I would have a lot of problems. The download went went, had to go through a learning curve, and then Linux Mint 18.3 was a breath of fresh air.

Wow. You really make it hard; my first Linux install was in the 90's. I had a dual boot with Windows. I used both, but Linux was exploratory and work required Windows. I learned a lot with my first foray into Linux, but not enough. I enjoyed it, but don't remember which Linux version except that it was one for 'newbies'. I have a new Windows PC arriving this month with an extra hard drive for Linux. What flavor shall I choose. Delicious!

We probably crossed paths... went out to the big Pomona meet a couple times, but more often to one in the SFV... same vendors, free parking, an hour closer. And holy bleeping chipsets, was RAM ever pricey. I remember driving clear to some shop in south L.A. and paying $400 for 16mb, then running out the door before they recognized their mistake. :D And that was nothing compared to just a couple years before!

At one or another of these meets I picked up a few early linux CDs, but none of them would boot and I soon stopped buying 'em. I probably still have 'em around here somewhere. Just tried some retro distros on the i7 and discovered that most of 'em from before 2009 won't boot, or at least threw up when booted off a USB stick.

The only time consuming part was getting the BIOS to allow a live boot. I installed Linux Mint 18.3, and everything just worked as promised and my computer (that I thought was dying with Windows 7) came to life and was fun again. Now a good day on a computer can be easily spotted - NO Microsoft!

What do you remember about your first Linux install?
 

About 10 - 12 years ago I was using Windows XP having come from a history of working with every version of MS OS from about Dos 3.. Then without notice my screen went black (no response from any input device). I knew it was a virus so I pulled out the hard drive and put into another machine as a slave so I could rescue my data and re-format. As soon as I did the new machine's screen went black (same deal). This was not going well. I went to the local IT professionals and they said they would not touch my hard drive.. and recommended I use a third system an download a LINUX OS to a boot-able USB stick and use it to rescue the data if it still existed. I got Linux Puppy and the rest is history. I have always had to dual boot some version of Windows with my Linux but never again trusted Windows on the net. Thanks to everyone here who helps us all to a better experience with computing..

I bought my first (second hand) computer with Windows 95 about 1988 which I within a month or two upgraded to Win 98 and I was beginning to realise that I simply didn't like the Windows system...Then I heard in passing about Linux but just got blank stares when asked for it in computer shops.... then to my delight, Redhat 5.2 came attached to the cover of a computer magazine. I managed to install it and even got the desktop working but no internet until I found out about winmodems and bought one that worked..... then came Mandrake 6.0 which was very beginner friendly even if it was slightly buggy. Of the early distros my absolute favourite was Redhat 6.2 which worked extremely well and made it possible to dump my Windows partition for good on my hard drive. Currently running Mint but I do have a soft spot for Slackware.

I remember being ecstatic that Linux to 10 Min to install instead of Windows XX took nearly an hour.

2003. I bought a Chaintech motherboard with a driver disk, as usual, and two Thiz Linux 6.0 disks. One disc was Asian, and the second was European. Although both had Russian. Many times we tried to install this OS with a friend, but we couldn’t! )))

In a time far, far away
 

It was the second half of the 90s and Slackware, which I still use today. A lot of floppies, excitement, and learning. Finally the joy when it worked :-)

My first Linux distro
 

I'd been playing with Linux since Ubuntu Dappy, but my first serious use was in 2005, when I put Mandrake 2006 on a 12" laptop (800 x 600 screen, Celeron 500 and 128MB ddr).
The install went OK, but I did have some problems with NDISWrapper to get dial up working. It was a relief to not worry about viruses (viri?) anymore

Excitement!

I installed Linux for the first time four years ago when I was 73 yrs old. Since it was on family computers, I chose Mint, dual boot with Windows. It was a really easy install, and the kernel supplied the hardware support we needed. We never have, and never will go back to Windows. I use the Ubuntu that came with my Lenovo Chromebook. Installed my favorite apps, including Python and ide's-- even Spyder. My field is psychology, but in my retirement I have enjoyed exploring my interests in math, science, and statistics. Linux allows easy and free installation of all the best apps. Go Linux!

Thanks for all the great responses. Two previous polls that may be of interest:

What Was Your First Linux Distro?
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ro-4175467184/

In What Year Did You Start Using Linux?
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ux-4175471350/

--jeremy

oh my, this goes back to just before RedHat split and they added the Fedora line of workstations OS's. So this is late win98 early win2k days. I was interested to learn something new and surprised how much easier the install was vs win9x or even win2k for that matter.

Faster install, all patching was complete after the install (completed during the installation if you had internet access) and things just worked.

Pleased. I have been using Linux on and off since than for one thing or another. Currently all of my family laptops and my personal workstation are all running Fedora 29. My file server is FreeNAS 9.x as I have not had the time to bring it down to upgrade to 10.x

LQ Poll - What do You Remember ~ install .........
 

I believe my First install was Damned Small Linux and I was searching for something with a smaller footprint than the Multi Gigabyte large Windows I had been using.
I was Extremely happy to find an OS that was both free (NOT ransomware like windows) and at only about 50mb small enough to fit on a Credit Card sized CD .
I loved it . Linux Mint 19.2 is now my favorite .

My first Linux was Mint Cinnamon about 4 years. As one of the contributors said, "I was ecstatic to find something more than Windows." Then I tried, as a full install: Ubuntu MATE, puppy then Ubuntu Gnome, then MX Linux and now back to Mint MATE 19.2 MATE. I have tried many more using their live DVDs, but I seem to come back to Mint, and as you have probably guessed, I like the MATE DE. I have to use windows for my job because I use Adobe Acrobat Pro. HATE WINDOWS!!!!

I converted my wife to the wonderful world of linux, she uses Mint xfce. I also try to spread the word to everyone about linux and get them away from Windows, especially W10:(

Thanks to the distro programmers for their time, patience and for LINUX!

Suse 5.0 1997 installed from a stack of CD's. I remember having to purchase a US Robotics modem since the winmodem that came with my system was unsupported. I remember feeling like an idiot after discovering RPM since I had spent a couple of days painfully trying to install projects from source code downloaded from the internet. Even with RPM, I remember "dependency hell" when installing packages, having to install every dependency manually. I remember how professional it felt to be able to create individual user accounts for members of my family. I remember how much better the command line worked than on Windows, where there was no tab-completion and if you messed up you had to re-type the whole line. I remember discovering symbolic links and hard links and being frustrated that Windows had nothing similar. Since then, I've always felt like I'm working with my right arm tied behind my back when forced to use Windows. I remember thinking "okay, this is the real operating system, can't wait for the rest of the world to catch on".

First time I installed Linux was Cent OS which is in a way newer generation around 2014 in contrast to some of the gold guys mentioning they did in 1992 or 1994 which is the almost my birth year. I came from a electrical background and git interested in computers around that time, and loved watching linux videos and tricks. so I decided to install the centos along with my windows 7. I must admit that I loved it !

Was in college and I had a 386, which was already slow by then but it was a hand me down computer. Friend handed me bunch of floppy disks with something called "Slackware" on it. Installed it. Was immediately amazed how the installer knew when you put in the next floppy disk. I think I figured out how to dial out with some dialer. No PPP yet, just dial in and access the Uni's systems.

Wasn't that long ago, 2010 Ubuntu when asked a friend for help with a WinXP problem, friend suggested Linux solution ;) - the install went well without any help, did dual boot for a while on that pc (c. 2003 Dell D2400) - and like others, happy to get away from Windows - knew next to nothing about Linux then and don't really know much more now other than I love it and super impressed with Arch dev's etc overall, as well as open source idealogy.
EDIT: prior to then, 1998 (Unix), enduser only.

Install and teach
 

I was teaching computers and networking at the time. One day my supervisor came in and handed me a Linux book and said you will be teaching this next term (two weeks out). There was a Fedora 13.0 CD included in the back of the book.

Having worked on computers for 45 years at the time I wasn't too worried about installing Fedora and learning it for myself. It was something I had been wanting to do for quite a while. But learning it while teaching was scary but it did force me to really dig deep into Linux.

After that first term I became the go to teacher for the Linux classes. Eventually I helped other teachers with the first Linux class but I always taught the advanced class.

I now use Linux Mint on all but two of my seven computers. The wife doesn't want to leave Win 7 and the other is for things that require Windows, mostly programs my clients run.

Very anxious stepping out of my comfort level of microsoft, but started computing in 1979 so worked with many DOS systems in the early years. Really feel privileged to have been able to work through all systems.

My wife and I both use Mint 19.2, an you could't pay Sue enough toever go back to Windows. As I'm interested in security I keep a Windows 10 Pro install for testing purposes, but as a daily driver - Urrgghhhh.

It was in 1999 when I installed Slackware 7.0 on an IBM laptop and made it a dual boot system with Win98. Though it was my 1st attempt to install Linux, it went smoothly. However, setting up XFree86 was a huge challenge. It was partly because information about ASIC chips used in laptops wasn't easily found back then, but it was also because configuring XFree86 was so confusing and challenging by itself(the video chip, horizontal and vertical sync freq. etc.). X window refused to start no matter what setting I tried, and eventually I talked to my coworker who was familiar with *BSD and he helped me with setting up X window.

In 1997, I switched my home PC to Caldera Linux, after having evaluated Suse Linux and Red Hat Linux.
However, I was still able to boot into Windows for gaming and ChessBase.
In 1998, I built a firewall hardware appliance using a single-board computer running Red Hat Linux 5.2, based on iptables. As the CPU was a non-Intel, I had to compile the kernel several times, until I got it right. Every compile run took about 4 hours.

About 2007, after reading an article about linux distros, l was determine to install Slackware. The actual first distro I installed got installed was damn small linux. Not knowing anything about linux it took me six months of googling, trial and error to get slackware installed.

In 1993 spring. I think it was SLS but may have been Slackware. The impressive thing was the number of floppies it took to install. We were using a lot of Sun workstations in my department so it was very interesting to boot up a Unix like system of some PC that was sitting around. Eventually we used a number of orphan pc systems as dns servers and print servers etc. Kind of under the covers as policy was to use DEC systems but on some projects we did not have the money to buy them.

About the same time (early 90s) as normscherer. Installed Slackware from floppy diskettes which i had mail-ordered. I think the kernel was 1.0.xxx! Was a DOS programmer foreseeing the imminent demise of DOS, hated Windows, so was trying alternatives. Couldn't get XWindows to work correctly, so left Linux until the next millenium, ended up doing OS/2 for a few years.

Immediately convinced
 

My first linux install was the Mint version on an old Compaq NX700 laptop. Mint looks nice and seems very much like Windows. An obvious reason, because I was a Windows user from the early nineties. Because I could not find in Mint a good driver fit for my printer I tried Ubuntu 16.4 from a USB stick. It looked like a miracle that Ubuntu offered a complete system with complete software on a 4GB USB stick. A smooth system, that made a 10 year old laptop up to date again. And a lot of software for free with it. I decided immediately to install ubuntu on my oud laptop and also on my state of the art desktop. Last year I bought a new Laptop with Intel I7 processor and Windows 10 preinstalled, but the first ging I did was formatting the SSD and install Ubuntu 18.4
Now in the Mate version, because my family is familiair with Windows and it looks much like that. Never problems with a lot of security updates, no virus threads and so on. I wish I had aqainted Linux much earlier. I must say that before my retirement practical things like having a business laptop from my employees and working all day there together with colleages in a complete windows surrounding, was not obvious.

Red Hat 9.0 2003

My first Linux installation was Solaris 9, it took so long to install and was failing repeatedly,. I was installing it for school so i decided to forget and installed Mandriva Linux 2008. Later installed OpenSuse. I've gone through all the losing data and every dual to multi booting problem you can imagine with Linux, but this days I consider myself an expert..!

No python
 

Install went fine, BUT, I had elected a custom install, which didn't include Python, and it turned out the installer depended on Python, as did several other critical features. Have it a second go and it worked.

I rarely reply to non-technical threads, but this one got me thinking.... Back in '99 or 2k I was introduced to Linux by a friend. That was either on Mandrake or Redhat (before it became commercial)... Cant remember... Unfortunately, that friend passed away in 2k4, way too soon...

It was Red Hat Linux, when it was still free, back in the 1990s. It was difficult and I could not even get a GUI at first, so I stuck it out with Windows for a few more years. Eventually I went with Ubuntu 8.04 and stuck with Linux as my main OS ever since.

I was really amazed at my first try at linux, it installed very simply and worked with all the defaults. Worked with other command line operating systems in the past and now learning linux slowly.

Awesome operating system.

S.u.S.E. 5.0 (not yet SUSE)

A frustrating experience. Nothing worked, not as expected and certainly not as claimed by those who recommended the OS to me.

I somehow got the NNTP component of Netscape to work and thus had access to newsgroups. This did especially NOT help, but increased my misery. SuSE 5.0 ensured that I would NEVER again try Linux... No way.

(but SuSE 6.4 was the best experience I had ever had with any OS. My expectations were low at that time, so do not compare things which are not comparable, please. Thank you).