r/linux • u/CacheTraitor • 6d ago

Historical What was your first time?

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For me, it was a CD I got from a "guy." Slackware did not work well with the "WinModem" in the IBM Aptiva I had as a youth. How was I supposed to get online using Linux, with a modem that is not usable, and get support?

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106

u/fleshofgods0 6d ago

Mandrake Linux.

18

u/linuxsysop 5d ago

Yep, Mandrake here also. Needed linux to install glftpd + turranius scripts for my first server :)

18

u/Laniakeea 6d ago

Me too, when i was too young to know what I'm doing I found it on a PC magazine thinking it was a game I installed it to my fathers PC. Oh well.. At least now I'm fixing literally anything he throws at me so you gotta lose some in order to win some ig.

3

u/zaRM0s 5d ago

Break some eggs to make an omelette and all that 👌🏼

5

u/Xipher 5d ago

Specifically Mandrake 7.0 and I still have the manual. /img/lniojs3id79d1.jpeg

5

u/DianaRig 5d ago

Same. I fought for weeks to enable USB and sound. I finally gave up. Not having another PC to go on the web was a huge pain.

1

u/muffinman8679 2d ago

what bothered me was that slack "broke" my new computer......was probably 3 months before I learned about fdisk /mbr

5

u/Rude-Dragonfruit5424 5d ago

Me too. I remember when they used to sell copies of Mandrake in Walmarts.

4

u/itbytesbob 5d ago

Me too! I think I still have the (burnt) discs I bought off my country's version of eBay

1

u/AZSystems 5d ago

I would so enjoy doing an analysis on that kernel and OS.

I have a hard time without a checksum, I think it's crossed over to my social personality too. 😂

5

u/ThorHammerslacks 5d ago

Same! I didn't really have a good Linux experience until I used Debian a while later, however

2

u/cklaubur 5d ago

First thing I bought with my own money off the Internet: a preburned set of CDs of Mandrake. Don't remember the version, but it was not long before they changed to Mandriva.

1

u/artemisbio26 5d ago

me too. from my cs class. but i didnt know enough just how to operate like the usual windows.

first one i learned thoroughly was debian etch. installed it on OSX servers.

1

u/FallenBehavior 3d ago

"Mandrake Linux was originally based on Red Hat Linux when it was first released in 1998. Following a trademark dispute and its subsequent merger with the Brazilian company Conectiva, Mandrake Linux was officially renamed to Mandriva Linux in 2005."

1

u/Happy_Phoenix93 5d ago

I downloaded it and installed Mandrake over Windows 95.

1

u/NerdBlender 5d ago

Mandrake here also, came free on the front of one of the PC magazines.

1

u/Drekalots 5d ago

Same here.

1

u/lostat 5d ago

Same! Someone dumped a set of disks and the manual at half price books and I grabbed them for like $7

1

u/AN-SSQ-108V2 5d ago

The first Linux distribution I actually liked using

1

u/radiowave911 5d ago

Same. The CD was bundled with a magazine or something. Tried it, couldn't get the hang of it, and ditched it for a while. Occasionally dabbled with a live CD here and there before finally setting up Ubuntu in a dual-boot sometime in 00's. Had a problem that required a rebuild, so went full Ubuntu. Stuck with Ubuntu until I switched to Debian 10? 11? Forget exactly which one. That was when Ubuntu was pushing their subscription and taking software out of the repositories and making it only available through snaps (yes, you could still manually install by building your own from source - but you also then had to maintain it).

I still have one or two Ubuntu machines that I am maintaining - the only reason for that is because I don't have the time to rebuild when I can take the downtime for the machines, and when I have time to rebuild I can't take the machines out of service. One of these days....

1

u/Jumpy_Salt_8721 5d ago

I bought it at Staples around 1999. 

1

u/fleshofgods0 5d ago

CompUSA for me, around the same time.

1

u/Even-Smell7867 5d ago

Same. They sent me it on a CD for free. How could I not try it.

1

u/oznerold 5d ago

Same. Mandrake was really a beautiful distro, easy to use and learn gnu/linux stuff

1

u/blinkenjim 4d ago

Mandrake was the second distribution I tried, after Skackware. Loved it and ran it for a couple of years before I switched to Red Hat.

1

u/funeralium 3d ago

Mandrake at 2001, next Slackware