Slackware here, and I still use it! Tried several alternatives but I just keep going back.

Slackware and then SuSE 7.2, I think it was.

I didn’t know about Linux until I was in my late teens, and even then didn’t care because I was a “Gamer” (ugh). My first disto was Ubuntu. I have used many distros but like debain the most.

Red hat Linux which was followed by slack sometime back in the 90s.

Ubuntu around 2006-2007, not sure the exact one I used.

My first distro was Manjaro. It was really cool, but also I remember having some trouble getting things to work on it without super extensive troubleshooting.

#!

Linux Mint 20. I got my first computer and was choosing an operating system. I didn’t even understand differences between Windows and GNU+Linux, but it was faster, UI was consistent, and the community was actually supportive. Most issues I had were already solved so I could find solutions online easily. r/linuxmint also led me to creating a Reddit account xD

Meanwhile support for Windows looked like: Turn it off and on again, run sfc /scannow, dism, chkdsk, you may need to reinstall Windows.
So I went with Mint.
Funny, but at first when I didn’t know about “Distributions” I was searching for just pure Linux. Poor old me didn’t know I was accidentally searching for the kernel.

Welp, the laptop broke after 2 months (hardware), but it was old. I definitely don’t miss that Athlon 64.

Linux Mint in like 2018. Now i use Debian.

Mandrake Linux 6.5. At the time I was drawn to it because they had a version that worked with the sims game.

OpenBSD on the Amiga in 95-96 or so.

It was around 2001 and I started by dual booting Windows with Red Hat, don’t remember which version. Eventually I dropped Windows and dropped the dual boot and switched from Red Hat to Ubuntu.

Slackware 3.0, so must have been late 1995 to early/mid 1996. It was included with the book Linux Unleashed, I believe.

I recall having to rebuild the kernel to get sound drivers working (voxware, if I recall). I can’t remember if they were included with the kernel, or if I had to patch it. I followed the directions in the book, presumably including updating LILO, and it actually worked. I think that if I broke the kernel, there’s a good chance I’d’ve given up on Linux at that point, so good thing it worked first try!

RedHat here in the late 90s, back when you could still find yourself writing a “modeline.”

Then Debian in the early 00s when apt was still a major discriminator. Finally, Ubuntu around 2008 just so I was running the same thing I was recommending to family members for ease of use. (At the time, Ubuntu sported the same ease of installation and hardware detection I’d found with Knoppix.)

Now on Xubuntu, but seriously eyeing a return to Debian.

Slackware, 1996. I had a hand-me-down 486 that didn’t have a CD-ROM drive. It was cheaper for me to sit in a Uni computer lab with a case of 3.5" floppies, than it was to buy a drive. Slackware got me through my systems programming course at the time without me having to find time to get to the Unix lab (only open during regular classroom hours) or Telnet in (yes, really.) I was living on campus and the dorms only had time-limited dialup.