Asklemmy

First operating system was DOS 4 or 5, I think. On big 5.25” floppy disks on an 8088. Unless we’re counting whatever was running on a commodore vic20.

My first Linux distribution was Red hat Linux, somewhere around 1997, 1998 and I had a really tough time getting it installed.

I also once had a trial version of os/2 warp. Which was fun but pointless.

If you could call it an OS, ZX spectrum basic was my first. My first Linux was Slackware 6 or 7 installed from a string of floppies. Good times.

DOS/Win3.1 I was pretty young. It was far back enough that it was still common to find Apple II's in my grade-school classrooms off to the side for when we had downtime. I regret that I was just a little too young to experience the Commodore 64 craze.

Briefly some form of DOS on an Amstrad PC when I was very young, then Windows 95

My first Linux was a few years later with Mandrake IIRC, which I dual booted with Windows 98SE

Been running combinations of Linux and windows since then, with MacOS getting involved in the 2010's too

First operating system I ever used was probably Windows XP, first Linux distro was probably either Ubuntu or Puppy Linux on an old laptop (I remember trying out the Ubuntu web demo back in like 2014.)

Windows XP

C64 -> MS-DOS 3 -> 4DOS -> Win 95 -> Win 2000 -> Debian -> Ubuntu -> chaotic smattering of various distros that changed almost weekly -> Mint -> Arch -> Manjaro -> MXLinux -> SteamOS (SteamDeck), Rasbian.

First OS was C64's Commodore KERNAL/BASIC 2.0 GEOS, if that even counts as an OS, the next was Amiga 500's AmigaOS

First Linux distro was Fedora

Windows 95, Knoppix and Mandrake Linux.

Whatever Commodore 64 ran, back when I was a little kid in the early 90s.

Whatever an Apple IIe ran. Some sort of DOS from what I remember.

Windows 1998 on a Pentium2. First linux distro was Ubuntu, uh....8.04 I think ? That was much later.

Amiga Workbench 1.3. - preemptive multitasking ftw

DOS s.u.s.e. 4.x or 5.x

Windows 98 and Ubuntu

Slackware 1.0, dann S.u.S.E

Zx spectrum --> msx-dos --> ms-dos --dr-dos --> win95 --> Suse (before it was bought by novell) --> win98 --> debian

Windows 7 -> Windows 10 -> Kubuntu -> Linux Mint -> Nobara -> Pop!_OS -> OpenSUSE TumbleWeed -> EndeavourOS

First OS: Windows ME (shudders)

First Linux distro: Some random one designed to run on Netbooks (Couldn't get wireless to work if I remember correctly)

Reading the comments I want to say I feel old (25y) but compared to others I feel like a gen alpha

I came late in the tech world. I started with Windows XP

And my first distro was Ubuntu 10.10 till Ubuntu 17.10. Now I just hop from distro to distro. Right now using Pop!_OS for a year now.

First time --> Basic (???)(Amstrad CPC464) --> MS DOS Windows --> 3.11 (yes, 3.11)-> W95 -> W98 -> Win Me -> Win XP -> Win 7 -> Win 10 (only for some games) GNU/Linux --> (2013) Mint -> Debian ->Manjaro (2-3 days) -> POPos (2-3 days) -> Mint -> Nobara --> Fedora (last Year)

Apple ProDOS yo! Then System 6 and on.

First Linux was a Debian disto packaged with Linux for Dummies somewhere in the late 90s/early 00s.

Windows 3.1, 98SE, XP, 7, 8.1, 10 and now 11.

I did once use Ubuntu for a few weeks but this was after someone at school goaded me into acquiring a copy of Norton PartitionMagic to try and merge two awkwardly partitioned drives on my computer, which then nuked my C:\ partition. I didn't have a backup copy of Windows XP to reinstall from so I had to go open source.

Needless to say, we didn't remain friends after that.

Windows XP on a laptop. Then Windows 7 on a new laptop. After that, Windows 10 and Windows 11 on desktop and another new laptop.

Tried Debian on my laptop. Later, switched completely to Linux Mint on desktop. Distro-hopped to Kubuntu (KDE Plasma). Wanted to get Plasma 6 immediately after release, so I installed EndeavourOS on my desktop and laptop.

Now switched to pure Arch Linux on my desktop PC, didn't boot Windows on any of my private PCs for months (no dual boot, only GPU passthrough VM).

First os: technically the Wii's os and android

First Linux: Ubuntu 16.04 (I remember it like it was yesterday 🥲)

My first OS was whatever ran on a Commodore 64. I guess the Commodore kernel and Basic?

My first distro was whatever version of Fedora was current in the fall of 2008. I'd gone to university that year and my laptop crapped out. Couldn't afford a legit Windows license at the time to replace it, and I'm pretty sure I just remembered that Red Hat was a thing and found Fedora that way. One thumb drive and 16 years later, still using linux, so I guess that was about the only good thing to come from my abortive first attempt at higher education.

Personal computer? Windows 3, I believe, but worked on computer earlier than that by a couple of years - I'm not sure what OS, it was maintained by this old guy named, no kidding, Mr. Fox. Had a rudimentary spreadsheet program.

DR-DOS

Mac OS 7. By the mid-2000s, I adopted Arch Linux after looking into some other Linux distributions.

Windows → Mint → Windows → Void → NixOS

On my first PC it was DOS 2.0, but before that I had a Vic-20, then a Commodore 64.

Apple DOS Edit: Apple ProDOS
First Linux, I'm not sure anymore. Whatever was prevalent in the mid 2000s.

Windows XP, but it was during its ending phase, so I think it really was Vista. My first Linux distro was Kali Linux because I wanted to be a cool hacker when I was a kid. I never got too much into it then, though. I then found Ubuntu, and strangely enough, I switched to Trisquel, which wasn't too bad. I decided to go all the way and buy a T400 with Libreboot/Trisquel when I was about 15 years old and used that as my second computer for about two years. I learned how to start installing Libreboot myself. It was a really fun experience (not really, there was a lot of quitting and crying), but it taught me more about GNU and the entire philosophy. I started to learn more about GNU and RMS when I was 18. Now I'm 20 and use Arch. The end.

First OS on a computer I personally owned? Windows 98. First Linux distro was Source Mage.

If not counting ownership, then Apple IIs at school and then slightly later my family got an Amstrad that was primarily a DOS machine, but could also boot (by switching floppies several times) to some sort of GUI.

DOS - Win3.1 - Win95/98 - BeOS - Red Hat Linux - WinXP - Mac OS X - WinVista/7/8 - MacOS X - Win10 - Debian Linux (and staying with it).

My first Linux distro was Ubuntu 5.04 that I got from a free magazine cd from my university.

On the Linux side: Crunchbang Linux when it was running Debian

I tried Microsoft Windows & Apple OS X before that, but that is is now behind me… as is Debian & Arch being a NixOS user for the last few years.

Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. 2007. I was looking for new and exotic ways to avoid writing papers.

First OS windows 95 First linux distro ubuntu Currently manjaro, windows 11, macos

Windows 98. Later the first Linux distro I tried was Mandrake Linux but I didn't really get into it until later with Crunchbang.

First OS: Win 95 (As a wee lad). First Linux: early lubuntu and backtrack that I used in college around 08-09.