Ubuntu at the start of my college years, dabbled with Arch in the senior year. Huge learning experience, but ultimately I went back to Windows because gaming support was nonexistent at the time. Kept the dual boot up and kept it running Arch during the day for coursework, Windows when I was all done.

For the past decade since then I was entirely back on Windows. Aside from an Ubuntu VM for my last job, I didn't really get back into it until the Steam Deck launched a few years ago, and at the start of this year I decided to set up a dual boot again once I got a new full new desktop build. Tried Bazzite, really didn't like how restricted I felt, immediately wiped it and tried out CachyOS instead, and that's my daily driver today.

And just this past week I finally decided got into selfhosting, something I've been eyeballing for ages but never really got around to. Proxmox on the host, Debian VM, pretty standard and works amazingly.

Mandrake -> Whatever came on the Linux Magazine CD -> Backtrack -> Arch

Deepin in 2019 or so. Yeah don't ask...

My first linux was Ubuntu 10.04. And I swapped to Arch only when Ubuntu added snap.

Ubuntu, as they used to send free CD packs to distribute. Was fun booting into live CD on computers.

Yellow Dog Linux ~2004 or so

I guess Ubuntu when I tried to make a minecraft server a couple of years ago. I first started actually using Linux as my desktop with bazzite.

Slackware in the early mid-nineties. But of course there was other Unix variants before that. And what was it called, OS/2 or something like that?

Slackware in 1996(?), then SuSE when they came up.
I then tried a bit every once in a while, but really never got fully comfortable with it on a desktop.
A few weeks ago I bought a new Desktop PC, which is now running with the Arch-fork #endeavouros and I really love it.

@midtsveen

My first Linux install was Slackware sometime in the late 90's. I didn't really use it though, as I never managed to get it working with my dial-up Internet. Stupid winmodems.

The first distribution I actually used was Mandrake. Others I've used since then include Suse, Ubuntu, Debian, Mint, Manjaro, and EndeavourOS. I've landed on using Manjaro on both my main desktop and laptop, though I have secondary machines running Debian, Slackware, Ubuntu, and EndeavourOS.

BackTrack 5 because I was too poor to pay for my own Wi-Fi back then, so I had to become creative heheh

CentOS

Mandriva. Yes, old and no longer exist. Forst distro i started to to use permantly on desktop is Fedora. The server has always been Ubuntu since the Mandriva time when I first learned about Linux. I think 2005. CS server etc. Desktop was 2024 when MS screwed up Windows too much

I inherited a Sony Vaio in 2009 which was really slow with windows, but unsurprisingly was ok once I swapped that out for Ubuntu 9.04. Took me a while to get the brightness up as the buttons didn't respond, but I kept that machine running for 7 years, the HDD controller died in the end so it stopped detecting any HDD.

It was DSLinux, Linux for the Nintendo DS. I tried it while hacking with the DS just to try that "Linux" everyone was talking about. I installed Ubuntu on my PC short after it.

Ubuntu Lucid Lynx

Currently, I use Arch BTW.

Turbo Linux in the late 90s. It didn't go well.

Later I gave Redhat a shot - 5.0 or 5.1, I forget. Stayed with RH and now Fedora.

Ubuntu back in the Gnome 2 days.

Way back: Ubuntu live CD. More recent history: Pop!_OS > Zorin OS > Fedora.

Happily been running Fedora for like 2 years now.

Red Hat, back when that was a distro. It was a long time ago now and my toying with it didn't last long; and began an obsession with hardware RAID…

Debian 🥔

I think mine was gentoo, waaaay back in the day. It didn't go great lol.

I'm loving opensuse rn though!

My first was Ubuntu in a VM because everyone recommended it, I distro hopped in VMs until I just ended up using Mint in a VM almost exclusively. It was when I complained to someone about the issues with the VM when locking the laptop and they asked me “Why not just run that system as-is?” that I installed it for real.

I've also used Manjaro for half a year, a very minimal Arch+i3 install (without the install script because I wanted the “real experience”) for about 1.5 year, and dual booted Bazzite and Mint on my gaming PC for a year (it's just Mint now), all the while trying out other distros big and small on older hardware or in VMs.

I don't feel I've found “the one”, but somehow I keep coming back to Mint... Although, perhaps NixOS is it... Who knows?

Andromeda Linux around 2009. It had cool astronomy based theme and animation.

Red Hat, way back in the 90s - must have been 5.0 IIRC.

Since then I went through Ubuntu and now landed on Fedora.

I played a bit with Suse around 2000, but I switched to Linux as my main OS with Ubuntu in 2005.
Now I use Manjaro, because I like the rolling release concept, and it's easy to use different kernels, and it's a good KDE distro IMO.
In my experience it's also among the best for Steam games.

Still shopping for one when I make the switch. Mint looked pretty user friendly.

I am not a computer unfortunately, only a ungabunga caveman

I first got to try Kali Linux while getting my degree.

@midtsveen if I remember correctly, I think it must have been Ubuntu 12.04
My first steps into the Linux world - it's incredible to see how far the Linux desktop has come since. I've got a laptop that runs exclusively Zorin OS and I love it!