We asked the Twitterverse, "When did you begin using Linux on the desktop? What was your first distro?"
Alejandro LANGUREN Alex_Languren: I started with a boxed edition of Turbolinux in 1999, now discontinued; the CDs are still in my personal library.
David Colon @davidpcolon: Slackware in 1995, back when we had to create modelines in our XF86Config file.
Bill Studley @BillStudley: Floppy version of Slackware that I downloaded from MIT
Jonathan Coker @jmc2038: It was Slackware in 1994. Used most of a pack of 50 3.5 floppies to load Linux and XWin. Set up to dual boot with NT 3.51 (had to for a class) on a 1GB SCSI drive. Modified the settings for my system then recompiled the kernel. Still took less time than the Win install.
Mika Nieminen @peisi1: My first was Linux Mandrake 10.0. Today Fedora, and tomorrow maybe openSUSE.
Kevin Adler @kadler_ibm: Mandrake 7.2, around 2000–2001. Switched to @SUSE shortly thereafter (now @openSUSE), and it has been my primary OS since 2004. Windows-free since 2014 or so (I don't have definitive record that I can find).
Saptech @saptech: Early 2000, Caldera Linux with KDE.
Rolf Besier @rolf_besier: Jumped in first in 1996 with Delix, then SUSE. It was a pain in arse switching floppies like a disc jockey. Delix was for me state of the art in networking. Had some server experiences with SUN Solaris & HP-UX for remote controlling. Now over 10 years on Debian with xfce4.
Daniel Bristot de Oliveira @bristot: 2002, using @acmel's Conectiva! It came with KDE and 2.4.18 kernel. First I thought that the / would run with swap "FS" because it was the only FS listed with "linux" in the description. No internet in my small town in .br that time, CD bought with a magazine!
HomeTechHacker @HomeTechHacker: Red Hat, I believe, back in 1995. Before that, I used NetBSD for a couple years. From 1999–2005 I used Windows, but I've been primarily Ubuntu since 6.06 in 2006, with some dabbles with Linux Mint, Kubuntu, Dreamlinux, Debian and Lubuntu.
Vincenzo Lalli @vincenzo_lalli: It was 2007 I think. I bought a Dell that came with Win Vista. Soon I realized I had to find an alternative. I installed #Ubuntu 7-something. Over the years I tried many other distros, now mainly using #debian. Never looked back; it's been a liberating experience. #linux
Anders Karlsson @skallen: 1993, Slackware downloaded floppies from http://funet.fi via a 9600 bps modem. It took all night to download them...
Positive Internet @posipeople: The @linuxjournal is one of the few GNU/Linux institutions that's been around longer than us :-) Proper, in-depth technical analyses don't get any better than those in the journal. They merit all our support!
I am Gareth's Smirking Revenge @garethgreenaway: Finally got around to resubscribing to @linuxjournal and was pleasantly surprised to see that ALL previous issues were available digitally. How awesome is that. If you haven't already, you should go subscribe.
Andrea Polidori @andpoli: A relaxing moment with the @linuxjournal August issue on my #Linux based @pocketbook #eReader. That's cool. ;-) #ontheBeach
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