Did you start with Debian?

[Aykan]

Started with mandriva around 2006-2007. Then i made long break because i was 7-8 yrs old and couldn't install a thing. Then 2 years ago installed ubuntu. Came through lots of Ubuntu forks. Then Backtrack 5R3 Polish remix. Then ElementaryOS. And and around two months ago came to Debian Sid.

[arzgi]

My first linux was RedHat 7 that came with a book I bought. After that bought RedHat 8. First day I got broadband
connection I downloaded Debian Woody, and Debian has been my choice ever since.

[infestor]

i think it was 2007-2008 when i jumped to linux. there was a lot of hype around ubuntu. a friend tried it and recommended it. then i learnt that it was derived from something called 'debian' i wanted to try debian but the forums seemed smaller than ubuntu.

[seoneal7]

I started with Woody. Or at least tried. I remember other distros thereafter, but Woody was the first I attempted.

[Atomic-Fanboy]

Nope, I started with Ubuntu - Lucid Lynx and Wubi :p

[/tmp]

I started with Ubuntu as it came pre-installed on my System76 laptop (at the time I found it would suit my use case) and found that I didn't like having my system mess up every time I upgraded a rolling release. Also, I was tired of having my hand held all of the time and wanted something that would be stable and able to run everything I was running at the time. Like others here, I found out Ubuntu was based off of something called Debian GNU/Linux. Ever since then, I haven't looked back (I wore my Debian GNU/Linux polo just yesterday )

[dariusdor]

My first *nix was Gentoo. This is not a distro for beginnners but I did not know that at the time. I thought they must all be like that, so stuck with it for over a year. One day an update deleted sed. Did you know you can't boot if there is no sed? That was the last straw.

Then I ran Slackware for a while. I was on a desktop, so I didn't have to fuss with drivers so much.

Got a laptop with a vendor-branded distro of BSD[1]. Drivers and hardware were made for each other so that made things nice and stable. Ran that for a few years.

New machine. Tried Mint. Mint seemed good at first but it acted like Windows. What Windows does that bugs the hell out of me is forget/randomize system settings every few days. Well, Mint was doing that. I had a different graphics driver in effect every few days. Stuff would break then fix itself. Uhhhh, no.

So finally, Debian. Testing then Stable (which was not) then Testing.

--
1) - otherwise known as Mac OS, shhh.

[buzzqw]

slackware 4 as first distro (used at work), then red hat 6 (at home).. then.. too much distro hopping (much more distroes listed at distrowatch)
then.. back to Debian, as usually

BHH

[n_hologram]

The first time I booted-up a Debian ISO, I thought, "why the hell aren't my wifi drivers automatically loading," got really pissed-off, and didn't touch it until sometime after puberty.

[ammar]

FIrst I didn't have a fast internet connection, and I had to always deal with CDs, so I started with redhat, then moved abit to openSuse, which i liked more. When Ubuntu was introduced I tried it and liked it, for a while till Unity is introduced, I didn't like the idea of cononical and its doing.. so I moved to the root distro Debian, and satisfied.

[dezingg]

Started computing back in the CP/M and DOS days. Didn't really have enough money to get serious with it. Still don't.

First received Slackware many years ago on something like 20 floppies. I never got that installed.
Sometime around 2005 I installed Linux (Debian?) on an ailing Win95 system with no Internet access, only managing to get the command line to work. Probably used it for about a year before the system totally died.

Didn't use Linux again until LiveCDs became available. Experimented (without installing) with Debian, Ubuntu and CentOS LiveCds. Chose Debian in an attempt to use a non-commercial OS with a strong support system.

Finally installed Debian Wheezy on my WinXP system early this year. System died. Replaced power supply and am again trying to learn Linux. Unfortunately in less than a week the system will go back to the no Internet location and only the laptop will ocassionally visit the Internet.

[texbrew]

Try to stay on topic boys

I'm a Linux newbie compared to most and started with Ubuntu in 2006, including versions 6, 8 and 10. Stopped at version 10.04 as i didn't like the direction canonical was taking. The systems still work great to this day BTW. Only been using Debian since last year.

Ubuntu gets bashed quite a bit in this forum but i'm thankful for their efforts as i may not otherwise be using Linux. I have a healthcare/non-technical background and even found the earlier Ubuntus a fairly steep learning curve. Now that i've found Debian, however, i no longer feel the need to distro hop. I always preferred Debian-based distros so now that i have a bit more experience why not just stick with Debian and install systems to my preference rather than what some other developer envisioned.

As for the poll, my honest vote will be "no".

Like mardybear, I started using Debian last year. It was the first distro I installed, then distro hopped some. One day, a light bulb switched on and I, like some others in this thread thought, "Why fiddle around with distros that are Debian based, why not just use Debian?" So I wiped Ubuntu from one PC, LMDE from another, and re-installed Debian on both of them.

For my grandson, I recently installed LMDE Cinnamon on a yard sale PC because I thought he would like the look & feel of mint. He isn't really interested in computers, so the yard sale PC will likely get a fresh Debian install.

I have Debian Wheezy and LMDE dual booting on my favorite laptop. I wanted to give mint an honest look and to be able to show it to others who may be on the fence about trying linux.

Debian is, and likely always will be my favorite OS.

tex

[krishna gopal sharma]

i started with ubuntu

but it ecaame spyware from 2.04 LTS

so i selected debian

the only problem which debian have is that "debian does not have many hardware drivers"

[craigevil]

Xandros>Kanotix>sidux>Debian

[Justin417]

First time I ever tried linux I tried Debian wheezy. Tried ubuntu but went back to debian. I also tried CentOS for a long time, but again came back to debian. Currently all my servers are running debian, but my laptop is still ubuntu. Gotta stop being lazy and set up the laptop now

[dasein]

This poll is now closed. (Comments are, however, still open.)

With 70 responses, the poll has long since reached its likely peak in terms of statistical power.

The readings remain consistent and indicate that 80-85% of respondents started with a distro other than Debian.

Thanks to all who responded.

[llivv]

going back even further
my first was actually a dumb terminal (POS) on an IBM mini, second was anothrr dumb terminal (POS) on an NEC min, than deskmate and DOS 2.11 on an i8088. Windows was still at version 1 and Howard Stern was also using OS/2. Unix? what's that? I've seen a vacuum tube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_tube machine behind a glass display and keep hearing about adventures with punch cards, but I never actually asked a machine to punch one for me.

[dasein]

going back even further...
...(I) keep hearing about adventures with punch cards, but I never actually asked a machine to punch one for me.

I never actually manually operated a keypunch machine, but I can honestly say that I've handled a stack of honest-to-gawd punch cards (punched and everything).

[keithpeter]

Good heavens, nostalgia.

Teletype into mainframe with B.A.S.I.C when I was at school 6th form (1975 or so). The modem was a 19" rack with a dial on the front. We used the punched tape facility to record 'artistic' pictures produced offline.

University: Algol in batch mode on some Honeywell mainframe. There was a paperthrow command to print a blank sheet of line print paper (wide sproketed sheets just under A3 size with thin light green lines alternating with blank space). When we needed scrap paper for doing maths on we 'accidently' put a loop round the paperthrow command...

Postgrad: IBM/360 in FORTRAN with 80 column punched cards for batch runs overnight. Wonderfully *solid* machines those card punches. The readers where impressive as well. Yes, I dropped the filing draw containing the FFT routine. No, the cards didn't have numbers in pencil on the back. Important organisation lesson learned. There were terminals around but then we bought an Apple ][ with disc drive and worked out how to use it to log data and then drive the machines. There was also a PDP 11 in a rack that you ran programs on using a teletype reading a punched tape. All I did was read the tape in and press the big buttons on the front. Memory fades...

Microcomputer: Amstrad PCW green screen wordprocessor at teacher training institute a tad later on. Amazing, *personal* computing. Just pop your chunky 3" inch hard cased operating disc and data disc in and wordprocess or do spreadsheeting, save your work, pop your discs out and let the next one on. Then Apple Macs, and then BBC B+ and RISC-OS based Archimedes at College.

Strange isn't it. We are planning decades ahead now. Hardware seems to have stabilised.

[vrkalak]

I had been using MS Windows for years (bought my PC in 1984)

I started my Linux journey (9 yrs ago) with Fedora (6 months) and then, Sabayon for a (1 year)

... I went with Ubuntu for about 1 week, then LinuxMint ...then, I discovered Debian. I have not changed.

I have 2 partitions > 1 with Debian 'stable+backports' and the 2nd with Debian-Sid