Ask Slashdot: What Distros Have You Used, In What Order?

Slackware on floppies by silas_moeckel · 2012-09-26 07:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

Then Redhat then centos

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No sir I dont like it.

Re:Slackware on floppies by icebike · 2012-09-26 07:22 · Score: 5, Insightful

Come on, is this really necessary or meaningful?
Who runs one distro at a time anyway? I have four or five installed in virtual machines. I've had as many as 3 running in production servers on physical hardware.
Does another post of untabulated me-too replys really provide any meaningful data?
Of course not.
I suggest this response:
Fill it out in painstaking detail, state your reasons and justification for each switch,
Thump chest vigorously at the end each rant section,
Get it all out of your system,
then click the Cancel button.
The world will be a better place.

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Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Re:Slackware on floppies by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-26 07:30 · Score: 3, Interesting

Slackware on Floppies (Oh so many floppies)
Then Mandrake, and an assortment of "mini-distros" to run custom hardware like routers
Then Redhat
Then Debian
Then back to Redhat
Then Fedora
Briefly Ubuntu, then back to Fedora
Then CentOS
Then a combination of Fedora, CentOS and Debian, depending on which system. The Clusters I work with are all CentOS, some of the infrastructure systems (ie: DNS, database server, ...) are Debian, end user workstations and my home system are Fedora.
Re:Slackware on floppies by IrquiM · 2012-09-26 07:31 · Score: 3, Insightful

Slackware covers all your needs - you don't need any other distro.

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This is blinging
Re:Slackware on floppies by theshowmecanuck · 2012-09-26 07:34 · Score: 3, Funny

You need to buy a gun. Then you'll have a real gauge on how big your cock is.

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-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Re:Slackware on floppies by Midnight_Falcon · 2012-09-26 07:46 · Score: 2

+1 on this. I installed Slackware '96 back when the penguin was a platypus. Learning how to compile stuff from source is much better for a beginner (albeit more difficult) than learning to use a package management system like yum or dpkg.
Re:Slackware on floppies by rwa2 · 2012-09-26 07:49 · Score: 2

Oh, so many, many floppies... mostly from old Office installs, outdated games, and a few AOL / Compuserve floppies from before they started mailbombing CDs
Then RH4 ... until my server got owned by a remote samba exploit. Migrated to Debian that weekend. More or less skipped Ubuntu, but nowadays mostly go to Linux Mint. Somewhere in there I also installed a box off of a KNOPPIX LiveCD. And then I did a lot of stuff on RHEL/CentOS 5 & 6 for work.
I still seem to learn the most from reading through Debian install scripts and conf files, though.
Oh, at some point I installed a minimal Debian distro onto an old 486 laptop with no floppy/usb/cdrom... got it through the serial port onto a ~120MB hard disk that I repartitioned and resized and loaded the kernel through DOS. That was... interesting.
Re:Slackware on floppies by interval1066 · 2012-09-26 07:59 · Score: 3, Insightful

Slackware covers all your needs...
Ran sw first in the mid 90's... ran away for quite a few years... then landed on Debian about 2006 or so... then Ubuntu, and now on Mint for the last 2 years. See, its not about increasing complexity, but less...

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Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Re:Slackware on floppies by sebt3 · 2012-09-26 08:17 · Score: 2

I do run only one distro myself. What the hell are you doing with 4-5 different distro installed at the same time. it sound to be a pain to maintain all that.
For me it have been :
RedHat -> debian testing -> debian SID.
I havent checked a distro in a long while. My debian install is still working nicely as I expect it to run, why would I change ?
Re:Slackware on floppies by taiwanjohn · 2012-09-26 08:24 · Score: 2

Windows is a piece of crap, but still much better for a desktop workstation than any Linux (or UNIX) I have come across.
Wait, what? Windows is a piece of crap, but still better than Linux? I think at least one of these words does not mean what you think it means. ;-)
I started with Slackware in '95, and tried various other distros over the years, though I couldn't name them all or tell you the order. RedHat, Debian, Gentoo, CentOS, FreeBSD, SuSE... it's all a hazy blur now... I kept a dual-boot Windows partition around for a while, but used it less and less, and finally stopped using it in the early 2000's. (I still have WinXP in a VirtualBox, just for SlingBox, but hardly ever use it these days.)
At this point, it's hard for me to imagine ever going back to "non-free" software. I've been using FOSS almost exclusively for over 10 years already. In recent years I've settled on the various *buntu distros, depending on which desktop is less "sucky" at any given time.

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XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Re:Slackware on floppies by bobaferret · 2012-09-26 08:30 · Score: 2

(93/4? thx tommyd)Yggdrasil->(95?)Slackware->(96/97?)Caldera->Redhat->Fedora->CentOS->Scientific
The switch to caldera included an official copy of word perfect... Those were the days, I could actually do my home work on linux. When GIMP came out, I finally got to drop dual booting in to widows, which was in 98 I think, windows free since.
Slackware once cost me $300 dollars to download on a +800 dialup service. 30 hours was a long time to be online back in those days. ...seemed like a good idea at the time..
Re:Slackware on floppies by alta · 2012-09-26 08:44 · Score: 2

I think you must be me. I would have posted the same thing.
The bad thing about it, when I was downloading said 60+ floppies on a modem, I didn't quite have enough disks... so I had to create 1-40, then once I used #1 I recycled it to 41...
The sucky part was the setup didn't tell you that you wouldn't end up using all the disks depending on what you chose to install, so a lot of them were skipped.

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Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Re:Slackware on floppies by armanox · 2012-09-26 09:01 · Score: 2

Another Slackware start here.
Slackware -> Red Hat -> Debian -> Red Hat -> Slackware -> Ubuntu -> Gentoo -> Fedora/RHEL
Slackware is still in use on several systems mind you. Fedora on laptops, and RHEL at work.

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I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Re:Slackware on floppies by Emetophobe · 2012-09-26 09:20 · Score: 2

I started with Slackware, moved on to Mandrake a few years later, then Ubuntu for a few years, now I use Debian.
My very first experience with linux was around 1995 or 1996. It was somewhat comical as I ended up getting hacked within minutes of installing Slackware for the first time. Back then Slackware had a boot disk and a root disk that were used to install it. I assumed that the root disk was related to the root account. I thought it was some type of security measure, like a hardware dongle, where you had to have the root disk inserted in the machine in order to login as root.
Back then Slackware had telnet enabled by default, and they didn't prompt you to enter a root password during or after installation. I made the mistake of logging on IRC thinking I was okay (I had the root disk inserted after all!). Next thing I know my console is getting flooded with hard drive errors. It turns out someone telneted into my password-less root account and did a "rm -rf".
I was 13 at the time but it was a good learning experience. After that initial mistake I learned to disable telnet and setup a root password.
Re:Slackware on floppies by camperdave · 2012-09-26 10:10 · Score: 3, Funny

You need to buy a gun. Then you'll have a real gauge on how big your cock is.
So... you measure how much space between the hammer and the percussion cap?

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When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!

75 floppy disks by yagu · 2012-09-26 07:18 · Score: 3, Interesting

Was it slackware? Can't remember for sure.

Anyway, I remember downloading the dist, in "sections" (e.g., X11), each spanning a number of floppy disks with a grand total of 70+ floppies. Then from there I installed linux. If all went well, it usually took about a day to get it up and running, start (download) to finish (first full boot). (Keep in mind, this was in the day of ADSL.) Horrible.

These days, I grab random different ones I've seen recent reviews for and download and boot just for fun. Typically I just download the iso's and point a virtual CD drive from vmware or some virtual pc and boot and install. Much nicer, usually less than an hour.

Faves: Suse, Mandrake->Mandriva, Knoppixware (to save friends and family lost corrupted Windows data), Ubuntu (3 years ago, not today). Mint.

Re:75 floppy disks by jellomizer · 2012-09-26 08:03 · Score: 4, Interesting

The trick was to down load the following groups.
Core, Networking.
Install those 2 groups from floppy.
Then run Slackware and use networking to dial in and then download the Games
Then the rest.
While they are downling and installing. You play lastroids.

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If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.

I left Linux for OS X... by drcagn · 2012-09-26 07:20 · Score: 5, Interesting

Mandrake -> Red Hat -> Xandros -> Gentoo -> OS X...

I love Linux and all, but the mainstream support of OS X combined with UNIX under the hood made the Mac the best platform for me. Sure, it's much more expensive, but I don't mind the additional money... after all, I am on my computer all the time anyway. I might as well spend the cash for the one I like best.

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Scorta futuere amo!

Re:I left Linux for OS X... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-26 07:42 · Score: 3, Insightful

avoiding OS X is not about money, its about morality. apparently you have no scruples.
Re:I left Linux for OS X... by retchdog · 2012-09-26 08:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

or maybe he has things to get done and doesn't want to fret about losing sound or wifi or even a functional desktop, with every software update.
i don't see how simply using free software is morally superior. i can see a moral argument for only developing free software, but that can be done on mac os x as well.

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"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Re:I left Linux for OS X... by Lodragandraoidh · 2012-09-26 10:21 · Score: 2

What is the moral imperative here?
If you are too scrupulous there won't be any technology that you'll touch...or are you selective about what you consider moral and immoral in a corporate context to justify your technology selections?

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Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain

Back in 2002. by MobileTatsu-NJG · 2012-09-26 07:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

RedHat, Knoppix, then back to XP because I was tired of editing .CONF files to do simple things like set up dual displays. Windows got better, so I haven't tried Linux since the early 2000's.

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"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

Since 1995.. by Xzzy · 2012-09-26 07:23 · Score: 2

slackware -> redhat -> gentoo -> arch

First kernel was 1.2.13!

Arch has become my favorite because of the rolling release system. And it manages to claim it's a minimalist while remaining usable.

redhat... by gagol · 2012-09-26 07:23 · Score: 3, Insightful

redhat -> slackware -> debian -> ubuntu -> mint (with a salt of BSD and OpenSolaris from time to time)

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Tomorrow is another day...

Many by __aardcx5948 · 2012-09-26 07:23 · Score: 2

Started with Slackware in the early days, then moved to Debian. Stayed with Debian until Archlinux showed up, been with it since. However, been trying out Ubuntu for a few years every now and then just to check it out.

SLS by xming · 2012-09-26 07:24 · Score: 2

SLS -> Slackware -> Yggdrassil -> Suse/Debian/Redhat -> Mandrack -> LFS -> Gentoo

Redhat - Mandrake - Mandravia - Gentoo by cwills · 2012-09-26 07:25 · Score: 2

Redhat -> Mandrake -> Mandravia -> Gentoo

If I add in my phone... stock android -> Cyanogenmod

Re:O Hai by dirtypoole · 2012-09-26 07:26 · Score: 2

started out with Gentoo?! Hardcore bro. HARDcore.

Redhat - XP - Ubuntu by Compaqt · 2012-09-26 07:28 · Score: 5, Interesting

Used Redhat back in the day. Everybody did. Remember the ads in the Linux Journal with the guy in the red hat handing off an attache case to someone else in a trenchcoat?

It was quirky, but worked. KDE had everything you needed: KMail, KOffice, Konqueror. nedit for editing files.

Later I got a desktop that had XP already installed. And it was "good enough". So I used it, and continued to use it. I had a a lot of open source software installed: Firefox, putty, Cygwin, Gimp, OpenOffice, etc.

After that I fell victim to some really hard to remove viruses, and decided that it was time to move on.

By that time, Redhat had abandoned the desktop, so I checked out what everybody was talking about: the new distro with the funny name, Ubuntu.

I installed 10.04, and stuck with it. I had read about Unity/Gnome3 and didn't like what I had heard. I thought that I would have to find another distro, which would probably be a pain since Ubuntu had enough momentum that you can usually always find a specific answer to a problem you might be having.

Also, Ubuntu is highly useful on the server. You can't use RHell unless you shell out $$. And Centos doesn't have any back--it's so messed up that a guy left the project, and the rest of the guys had to beg him for the domain and donation account. Their versions come out much later than RedHat releases, and RHell generally is many versions behind Ubuntu in software releases, many of which have features that are sorely needed. Also, RHell repositories barely have any packages compared to Ubuntu. (True, there's a community effort called RPMForge, but if you want to go with that, why are you going with the "conservative" distro? Dissonance.)

After Precise 12.04 came out, I decided to give it a try. By that time Unity had actually become a useful environment, making most power users/devs more productive. And so here I'll probably stay, both on the desktop and the server.

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I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog

I guess I'm a masochist by bleedingsamurai · 2012-09-26 07:30 · Score: 2

Fedora->Ubuntu->Linux Mint->Fedora->Debian->CentOS->CrunchBang->Debian->Arch->Sabayon->Gentoo

there is a lot going on there but I've been using Gentoo for the longest period of time and I see myself sticking with it for a very long time to come.

Red Hat first, Gentoo most recent by Deathspawner · 2012-09-26 07:31 · Score: 2

Red Hat (1999) > Caldera (2000) > openSUSE (2001) > Gentoo (2005)

Slackware - Gentoo - OpenSUSE by TheNinjaroach · 2012-09-26 07:31 · Score: 2

Started with Slackware in 2002. Learned how to make menuconfig on the kernel, and generally how to compile and install apps & libraries from source. Then I moved around, trying Redhat, Fedora and Mandrake before settling on Gentoo for awhile.

After twiddling with Gentoo for several months I kind of got over the fun of waiting for everything to compile.

I found OpenSUSE somewhere along version 9, fell in love with it and haven't looked back. I'm firmly in the OpenSUSE camp and would like to stay here as long as possible.

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I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..

Re:O Hai by binarylarry · 2012-09-26 07:32 · Score: 2

I was funrollooping the fuck out of that shit, bro.

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Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!

Are there more of them? by IrquiM · 2012-09-26 07:34 · Score: 2

Slackware (some time in '97) - briefly tried Red Hat, Suse and Turbo Linux, but went back to Slackware in '98, and have been stuck there since.

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This is blinging

Trends and Timing by cervesaebraciator · 2012-09-26 07:35 · Score: 3, Interesting

Maybe we could spot some trends.

I suspect that if there are any trends to be spotted, they'll have to do when people began to use Linux more than what they began with. The distros available to anyone with broadband today are far more numerous than those once available to us. My first exposure to Linux, e.g., was an early iteration of S.u.s.e. included with a magazine. I could not at that time (90s) have hoped to download a full distro on my ~28k dial-up.

Here, however, is a trend I think we'll certainly find. Many seem to go through a stage where trying different distros for a couple months at a time is fun. Then they get sick of backing data up, tinkering with settings, and explaining to significant others why the computer isn't working at the moment. Whereupon they settle on whatever distro they feel like they'll have to fool with the least.

Incidentally (IIRC): S.u.s.e. --> Redhat --> Mandrake --> Mandriva --> Arch --> Gentoo --> Ubuntu --> OpenSuse --> Ubuntu --> Mint --> Ubuntu

Slackware by Noryungi · 2012-09-26 07:35 · Score: 2

Let's see, it went something like this:

Slackware (1995!) -> Caldera -> Red Hat -> Mandrake -> FreeBSD -> Slackware -> OpenBSD -> Slackware -> Slackware -> Ubuntu -> Slackware.

These days, home machines are either Slackware (Slackware 14 coming up! Yay!) or OpenBSD (pre-ordered OpenBSD 5.2 already), except for two machines running Windows XP and Mac OS X.

Work is a mix of FreeBSD, Centos, Red Hat, SuSE and OpenSuSE. I have also worked on AIX, Sun Solaris, HPUX, Tru64, NetBSD and others.

I like the stability, flexibility and simplicity of Slackware, and the security and stability of OpenBSD. Both of these are, in my opinion, the open-source projects that have stayed the closest to their roots and offer the best experience overall across platforms and applications.

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The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)

Re:I don't understand by corychristison · 2012-09-26 08:03 · Score: 2

When you first start out everything is so new and exciting. You first just want to try anything and everything. You try a few things, learn some new tricks with every distro. Eventually you find one you love, and stick with it. After a few years you see all these hott young distros and get curious and give them a good fsck under a VM or an old box. Every single time you think to yourself "never again", but they always lure you back in because the old ball and chain isn't quite as flexible.
As you get older you realize you prefer the comfort of one distro but like to spice things up with one or two on the side.

Forgot some of them... by frooddude · 2012-09-26 09:51 · Score: 2

Started with Slackware in 93/94 (I think, just remember a ton of floppies and I definitely used Slack back then, just don't know that I started with a distro, this was kernel .98alpha or so)
I know I played with Yggdrasil (that became SuSE, right?)
After that everything is pretty hazy, but I spent many years on Debian then switched to Gentoo a couple years ago.

On the other hand I professionally support RedHat and OL (and any other enterprise flavor should something broken come up).

If you can't do it with Slackware... by spaceyhackerlady · 2012-09-26 10:08 · Score: 2

...is it worth doing?

At home I've only ever used Slackware, from 1997 (Slackware 3.1 aka Slackware '96) to the present day. I did my thesis on a Slackware box, initially a 486/66, upgraded to a snazzy (?) Pentium 233 MMX. My personal development/play machine at work is Slackware.

The Powers That Be insist on RedHat for production, but tolerate us using CentOS for development. So be it.

I've played with Debian on Sun UltraSPARC boxes, but the novelty has since worn off.

...laura

Nearly 20 years worth of Linux! by cybervegan · 2012-09-26 21:11 · Score: 2

I've been using Linux for nearly 20 years, and have used whatever seemed most useful at the time or whatever was dictated by the organisation I worked at. I used Ubuntu on my desktop/laptop for about 5 years, until Unity came along, then hopped about for a while looking for an alternative to Gnome 3, even trying Fedora 13 with KDE for a while. On servers, I have historically favoured CentOS/Red Hat based systems, but in latter years have moved over to pure Debian.

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