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My first introduction to linux was SuSE 7.2. Got it in the physical box from a local Borders bookstore. I think I was about 12-13 years old. Installed it on the
by whalesalad 2y ago
My first introduction to linux was SuSE 7.2. Got it in the physical box from a local Borders bookstore. I think I was about 12-13 years old. Installed it on the family Gateway computer (PIII, 128mb ram).
- mtillman 2y agoMy boss had me install SuSE 4.? but I reverted to Slackware after a few months. Yast was pretty cool from what I recall.
- johng 2y agoSlackware was my first distro as well... want to say kernel was around 0.94 or thereabouts.
- whalesalad 2y agoI played around with slackware a ton. And mandrake (before mandriva). And OG fedora (still have some Fedora 1 DVD's somewhere, from a magazine) All of them sucked imho. Switched to Debian when lenny was released and haven't looked back. My current workstation is Debian 12 and it is a rock solid workhorse.
- quink 2y agoSuSE 6.3 for me. With the handbook and everything on CDs it's the sort of introduction to Linux as physical artifacts that you had to deal with. It defined a life-changing experience that's near impossible to avoid. Because you sure weren't able to pull a Docker container of any size in two seconds flat, you weren't able to Google for whatever (Linux Documentation Project was the only website worth visiting), and what you had was what you had, none of this having the latest from github at any time. It was nice to have these limitations that forced you to sit down and just be with it, free of all the distractions and doubts that arise from always seeing the latest on Hacker News. You knew it was good, you knew you had it all, and you could make the world your oyster with ancient Perl and PHP, documentation and all included right there on those CDs.
- mongol 2y agoMy first PC was a used IBM PS/2 Model 70. 2 MB RAM, 60 MB HD. It could not run Linux due to the MCA bus. I lost one year of Linux use because of it, until I bought a Pentium 75.
- Bootvis 2y agoI have a very similar experience but using 6.4 installed from 6 (six) CD's. Took me forever to get internet working, first dial-up then ISDN.
- mattl 2y agoYeah I used to love the era of boxed Linux distros with manuals in bookstores and computer stores.
- FlyingSnake 2y agoI remember fondly my first brush with SuSE around 2005, and I was blown away how polished and professional it was. I was a Red Hat user then and later moved on to Ubuntu so I found the YaST based bit foreign to my taste. Those were the days of wild distro-hopping. Pentium 4, 128MB RAM
- lycopodiopsida 2y agoI still have a full box of SuSE 7.3 on my shelf, the first (and only) Linux disto I've bought. :)