Mandrake was my first distro as well, haven't used it in ~14 years I guess.
I remember downloading it over a 56k modem that kept disconnecting at night and when I was at work, it took about a week! Sadly, I knew no Linux users in person.
But it was totally worth it. I can still remember the sense of adventure first installing and running Linux. And then I installed some dev tools, and it was like this OS was calling me to write code. I started to code and haven't stopped since...
I actually bought Mandrake at the store, Office Max I believe.
First linux I could get to work with my video card--after a couple of weeks trying with redhat. Sound was another story--I don't think I got it working.
I actually switched to RedHat a few weeks or months later, I can't recall exactly why, and I do have some memories of playing music with XMMS on those first distros.
I remember downloading it over a 56k modem that kept disconnecting at night and when I was at work, it took about a week! Sadly, I knew no Linux users in person.
But it was totally worth it. I can still remember the sense of adventure first installing and running Linux. And then I installed some dev tools, and it was like this OS was calling me to write code. I started to code and haven't stopped since...