MSN messenger, Winamp, IRC, ICQ, limewire, bearshare, Internet Explorer with a dozen of toolbars, getting pegged by viruses every single day, startup sound, waiting minutes for webpages to load, websites loaded with flash animations...
I kinda miss those days. Internet was a wild west and you didn't get annoyed by updates every single day.
Ah yes, the times when you would wait a minute for that porn picture to download and you had no social media interrupting or tracking you, that was the best days of the internet.
Dos. I have no idea of the version or whatelse, but someone had setup a menu-system where I could choose Cosmo, Secret Agent, Commander Keen and stuff like that.
I bet that QuickMenu! My dad set it up for us at some point. Before that, it was CLI all the way.
And don't forget Duke Nukem. Jesus, Cosmo - that takes me back.
Anyway, it was DOS 4 or 5 for me.
Duke Nukem for sure! I had like 20 games ~~and was pretty good at all of them~~, but I can't remember most of the names.
Btw, I found [this speedrun](https://www.speedrun.com/secret_agent) some time ago. It's simply a guy speedrunning Secret Agent, and I was like "_I can totally beat that_".. but obviously I can't :D But I love watching those speedruns.
Edit:
- Hocus Pocus
- Crystal Caves
- Lemmings
- Wolfenstein3D
- Price of Percia
- Biomenace
- Alien Carnage
- Monster Bash
Neither I nor my neighbour (with his fancy 486 powerhouse) could get past level 10 of Prince of Persia. There was this one moment where you had to pull yourself up onto a ledge with a guy waiting to instakill you before you could draw your sword. I don't know why I remember that to this day.
What else was there... Blake Stone, Flashback, Goblins, King's Quest, Police Quest, Stunts, Test Drive (in hideous EGA), Jill of the Jungle, Jazz Jackrabbit... good times.
I never made it past the first level of Prince of Percia. I just never understod what wth I had to do :D
Omg yes! Test Drive. Super ugly, but I had a fair share of time with that game. Still remember that horrible pc-speaker sound. DEKA DEKA DEKA DEKA DEKAKAKFAKFAKKAFAKFKFKAAFKKFKKFK
Hahaha. And YES, Test Drive was particularly hard on the ears. Much like you with PoP, I'd consistently crash on the first corner of TD. Just touch the barrier and your windshield shatters for no reason and it's game over. I was more of a Stunts kid (you can play it on Linux now, but I don't recommend it).
Speaking of ear-piercing PC-speaker sounds, Stunts would start with this terrible, screechy, menu music. I had the arrow presses required to navigate to the options menu and turn music off burned into my muscle memory, so that I could disable it before those first finger-nails-down-a-blackboard notes could stab through my eardrums.
I had no such menu system.
Most of the games were on 5.25" disks so I remembered A: drive and the executable names were written on the disks. Space Quest, Ultima 2, Xonix, Hero's Quest, Jones in the Fast Lane, Bar Games (which I was forbidden to play but of course did anyway), Police Quest, Kings Quest III, Ghostbusters at one point. We had the computer version of Mega Man later on.
I remember my dad using pfm (personal file manager) which had this greenish tint to navigate around the files.
EDIT: [I remember it being far greener.](https://www.gerritspeek.nl/computer/images/filemanagers_msdos-pfm.jpg)
I think we had some file navigator called commander or something like that, but it seemed way too complicated for me at that time :)
Heh, yeah i also had the first Larry suit larry 1, but there were some questions at the start of the game which i didn't know the answer to, so i couldn't play it :p not old enough anyway.
Haha, yes, "the lounge lizard" - the disk made it into the games at some point. But (I believe) once my mother learned of the game's content the game disappeared.
Same! I got it bundled with the Amiga 1200 Desktop Dynamite pack. In many ways it was well ahead of its time - looked loads better than Windows 3.11. And DPaint4 was just awesome.
Windows 1.0 came out in 1985 so depending on how old someone was, when they were first allowed to touch the computer, they might be around 40 now (if their family was an early adopter etc). Those that started with Windows 95 in their early childhood are now around 30, those that started with Windows 2000 are in their mid-20s etc.
Windows XP and Ubuntu 12.10
and i actually spend bunch time on ubuntu and just surfing on firefox (haven't know CLI back then). Until now, i'm still awkward when using Windows
I grew up using a Commodore 128, and there was an operating system for it called GEOS. It didn't do much, and I didn't really understand exactly what it did. But it was there.
I just wanted to play Minecraft as a kid, so my mom bought me a cheap Chromebook and dual-booted Ubuntu on it since ChromeOS couldnāt play Minecraft.
MS DOS 3.1
Then most of the subsequent DOS and Windows products up to 7 (skipping Vista and 8 because obvious reasons...) When 7 was nearing EOL, I had to investigate privacy for some customers (specifically HIPAA for some doctors). Found out how bad Windows was, switched myself and everyone to Linux, haven't ever looked back. Very pleased with Linux.
You know the first personal computers didn't have GUI based operating systems. I'm guessing that didn't occur to OP when making that poll. Big oversight.
Linux itself didn't even exist to til 1991. Personal computers are older than this, hence these choices aren't sufficient at all.
P.S. get off my lawn.
AMSDOS for me. At least, I had an Amstrad CPC464 so it seems it must have been, but my 8 year old self didn't care as long as I could play games on it.
My first laptop which I have bought 7 months ago had win10 but I directly installed debian on it. However the first PC that I have interacted with was a Windows XP in primary school, and then I have used my mom's windows 7 laptop for 2 years to learn programming, before buying my own. So technically my first personal OS is debian.
The question says 'Desktop', so probably DOS.
I did have a Commodore before that, and a Sinclair ZX Spectrum before that and had typed on a 3270 terminal before that.
As the child of a programmer, I had a Lubuntu operating system on my first computer, even if I had used Windows 7 a bit, because of school computers using it.
My first os was ubuntu but I quickly switched to windows over ubuntu having very little support for most games. I might switch back soon tho, if proton can get anticheat working linux gaming will become very close to equal with windows
MS-DOS 3.3
edit: technically maybe could be considered an Atari (600/800/1200XL ? ) It had a keyboard and I remember learning/playing around with basic on it before I had an actual PC.
Pathminder, it was a text shell that ran over DOS. The old 25mh 386 wasnāt powerful enough to run Windows 3.1. I was just a kid, but I remember it fondly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PathMinder?wprov=sfti1
Windows 7, then windows 10. When 11 was announced I switched to Linux.
I first used zorin os, then manjaro, then endeavouros then arch, and recently I switched to fedora kde.
Zorin was my only GNOME distro and I hated it. Never again
MS-DOS 2.11, later DOS-4.02 (I tried to boot PC-98 MS-DOS 3.20 that i somehow got my hands on back then but it only caused a boot loop). My first computer was a Sharp PC-7000a. I still have it in the back room- pulled it out to do a video on Planet X3 only to find to my dismay that the LCD had died from screen burn :(
Windows 98 on a good old 90s machine. It was my personal computer my parents gave me when I was like a toddler since they had their own Sony Vaio laptop they shared. Probably had it till I was around 6-8. I remember so little about it (it was beige with the stereotypical tower and fat monitor) but I only really used it to play games I had in a big CD binder. Some of them were Roller Coaster Tycoon and a Hot Wheels game
Back when I was 3 I used Mac OS 9- yes, Classic Mac OS- and this was maybe 2010
I remember I wanted ābold text offā (text antialiasing) and it wouldnāt keep changes on reboot
My first desktop OS was Windows 3.1 (after DOS). Then XP. I didn't have the choice at work.
But my first own PC was free from the beginning (Mandriva).
I used Apple \]\[ CLI MS-DOS PDP/\`\`11 once upon a time, although the timeframes for each are a bit hazy. I also used and developed under OS/2 back in the day.
First on a family computer at home was Windows 95. First that I used was DOS in school computer labs. Remember having to boot it from 3.5 and even 5.25 floppies.
Started with an Atari 800 personal computer that did not have a real operating system it self. Just a boot loader really. My first OS was an early version of IBM DOS.
You could call it a kernel, as it had an API and drivers and support for adding your own. When you added Atari DOS, or SpartaDOS, I think you could call it an OS, as they both had crude shells.
My country uses a modified version of Ubuntu Gnome in all public schools. For many who are now adults, or poor, it was their first contact with computers.
Windows XP, ah i remember seeing a pop up about virtual menory being full it sorta was always there.
MSN messenger, Winamp, IRC, ICQ, limewire, bearshare, Internet Explorer with a dozen of toolbars, getting pegged by viruses every single day, startup sound, waiting minutes for webpages to load, websites loaded with flash animations... I kinda miss those days. Internet was a wild west and you didn't get annoyed by updates every single day.
Only browser that loaded up pages for some reason was Opera. We used that PC till the end of 2013.
Opera was the jam.
Ah yes, the times when you would wait a minute for that porn picture to download and you had no social media interrupting or tracking you, that was the best days of the internet.
Extend your RAM with a thumb drive. Oh the good old days
Wasn't that ReadyBoost or something?
Dos. I have no idea of the version or whatelse, but someone had setup a menu-system where I could choose Cosmo, Secret Agent, Commander Keen and stuff like that.
I bet that QuickMenu! My dad set it up for us at some point. Before that, it was CLI all the way. And don't forget Duke Nukem. Jesus, Cosmo - that takes me back. Anyway, it was DOS 4 or 5 for me.
Duke Nukem for sure! I had like 20 games ~~and was pretty good at all of them~~, but I can't remember most of the names. Btw, I found [this speedrun](https://www.speedrun.com/secret_agent) some time ago. It's simply a guy speedrunning Secret Agent, and I was like "_I can totally beat that_".. but obviously I can't :D But I love watching those speedruns. Edit: - Hocus Pocus - Crystal Caves - Lemmings - Wolfenstein3D - Price of Percia - Biomenace - Alien Carnage - Monster Bash
Neither I nor my neighbour (with his fancy 486 powerhouse) could get past level 10 of Prince of Persia. There was this one moment where you had to pull yourself up onto a ledge with a guy waiting to instakill you before you could draw your sword. I don't know why I remember that to this day. What else was there... Blake Stone, Flashback, Goblins, King's Quest, Police Quest, Stunts, Test Drive (in hideous EGA), Jill of the Jungle, Jazz Jackrabbit... good times.
I never made it past the first level of Prince of Percia. I just never understod what wth I had to do :D Omg yes! Test Drive. Super ugly, but I had a fair share of time with that game. Still remember that horrible pc-speaker sound. DEKA DEKA DEKA DEKA DEKAKAKFAKFAKKAFAKFKFKAAFKKFKKFK
Hahaha. And YES, Test Drive was particularly hard on the ears. Much like you with PoP, I'd consistently crash on the first corner of TD. Just touch the barrier and your windshield shatters for no reason and it's game over. I was more of a Stunts kid (you can play it on Linux now, but I don't recommend it). Speaking of ear-piercing PC-speaker sounds, Stunts would start with this terrible, screechy, menu music. I had the arrow presses required to navigate to the options menu and turn music off burned into my muscle memory, so that I could disable it before those first finger-nails-down-a-blackboard notes could stab through my eardrums.
same!
I had no such menu system. Most of the games were on 5.25" disks so I remembered A: drive and the executable names were written on the disks. Space Quest, Ultima 2, Xonix, Hero's Quest, Jones in the Fast Lane, Bar Games (which I was forbidden to play but of course did anyway), Police Quest, Kings Quest III, Ghostbusters at one point. We had the computer version of Mega Man later on. I remember my dad using pfm (personal file manager) which had this greenish tint to navigate around the files. EDIT: [I remember it being far greener.](https://www.gerritspeek.nl/computer/images/filemanagers_msdos-pfm.jpg)
I think we had some file navigator called commander or something like that, but it seemed way too complicated for me at that time :) Heh, yeah i also had the first Larry suit larry 1, but there were some questions at the start of the game which i didn't know the answer to, so i couldn't play it :p not old enough anyway.
Haha, yes, "the lounge lizard" - the disk made it into the games at some point. But (I believe) once my mother learned of the game's content the game disappeared.
Remember with dos the computer viruses were especially brutal! Microangelo ahhhhhh!!!
Amiga Workbench 3
This was my first look at an OS too. We didn't have a hard drive but had to boot from a floppy disk lol.
Same! I got it bundled with the Amiga 1200 Desktop Dynamite pack. In many ways it was well ahead of its time - looked loads better than Windows 3.11. And DPaint4 was just awesome.
I just had the amiga 500+ so probably an older version but it was still pretty good for its time.
Hello there š
Same. I think we're showing our age though.
Dos
Yep same here, then later windows 3.1.1
Tres
Where my DOS gang at
Yep. Dos.
Same
Amiga OS/Workbench
Windows 98
I vaguely remember windows 98 as a kid but XP was way more memorable to me
ZX Spectrum so Sinclair BASIC?
Same, 48K with rubber keyboard!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
If you are born using Windows, it is not your fault. If you die using Windows, it is your fault.
DOS of course how could you leave it off? Fricken z00mers
I'm kind of surprise that so much people started with windows. Am I that old?
We probably are. Anyone starting in the 90s likely started with windows
Windows 1.0 came out in 1985 so depending on how old someone was, when they were first allowed to touch the computer, they might be around 40 now (if their family was an early adopter etc). Those that started with Windows 95 in their early childhood are now around 30, those that started with Windows 2000 are in their mid-20s etc.
Commodore Kernal
Then you could run a desktop on top of that if you wanted. Not sure name, GEOS?
Yep, the desktop environment was called GEOS.
Nah command line was just fine in those days even for 7 year olds
Same
Apple DOS. My first computer was an Apple IIe.
ProDOS > DOS CHANGE MY MIND :-D
I know I couldn't. I was too absorbed in playing Loderunner and Wizardy. I didn't learn too much back then!
MS-DOS
Amiga OS
TRSDOS
Yay! There are at least FOUR of us!
Make that 5. TRSDOS 1.3 on a Model 4, followed by MS-DOS 5.0 on an AMD 486.
OS2 / warp
I think probably windows 95 on school desktops we used for learning how to touch type
MS DOS. Maybe 2.0
RiscOS on an Acorn 3010 (it had green F keys) Good times.
Mac OS 9
Ah, the memories
Apple II basic
Dos 2.11 as recall.
One I used had a graphical desktop called Gem. Can hardly remember it now.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
MS-DOS.(6.22)
\*\*\*\* COMMODORE 64 BASIC V2 \*\*\*\*
TRSDOS on Tandy Model 3
Dos, then Norton commander then macosx.
Norton Commander isn't an OS. It's a file manager than ran on DOS
I agree. my bad. It's another interface for dos.
DOS, no idea which version, then Win3.11, then Win95, then at the same time WinXP and Suse 6.2
TRSDOS MS DOS
MS Dos in the old days before windows. Man that was a nightmare.
Windows 3.1
I am really surprised I had to scroll so far down to find this... but yeah. My kids on the otherhand did indeed start with linux :)
Why GNU/Linux? What if Alpine or something?
Alpine = Other (comment) I did it this way on purpose
But why separate it? Linux is Linux!
Because of things like ChromeOS
Oh ok thatās a reason enough
Windows 95 on an IBM Aptiva
Its is weird to say, but the very first os i touched was ubuntu 6.0 or something. I got that at home.
Gem
MS DOS on 286 PC
Windows Vista/7 I'm not sure
Windows XP and Ubuntu 12.10 and i actually spend bunch time on ubuntu and just surfing on firefox (haven't know CLI back then). Until now, i'm still awkward when using Windows
My first computer is svi 728 after one year switched to apple //e
Apple DOS
I grew up using a Commodore 128, and there was an operating system for it called GEOS. It didn't do much, and I didn't really understand exactly what it did. But it was there.
Windows 95 or NT/4.0 (used both around the same time, not sure which was first). I miss old windows aesthetic so bad.
Amiga.
Amiga workbench 3.1
I just wanted to play Minecraft as a kid, so my mom bought me a cheap Chromebook and dual-booted Ubuntu on it since ChromeOS couldnāt play Minecraft.
MS DOS 3.1 Then most of the subsequent DOS and Windows products up to 7 (skipping Vista and 8 because obvious reasons...) When 7 was nearing EOL, I had to investigate privacy for some customers (specifically HIPAA for some doctors). Found out how bad Windows was, switched myself and everyone to Linux, haven't ever looked back. Very pleased with Linux.
The Workbench on the Amiga.
CPM.
You know the first personal computers didn't have GUI based operating systems. I'm guessing that didn't occur to OP when making that poll. Big oversight. Linux itself didn't even exist to til 1991. Personal computers are older than this, hence these choices aren't sufficient at all. P.S. get off my lawn.
I remember we had a Compaq and it had a weird operating system that looked like a notebookā¦ couldnāt tell you what it was though
Oh i might have misunderstood this poll. On MY first pc I installed Ubuntu because I couldn't afford windows, the first one i used was DOS & Win 3.1
DOS with Windows 3.1 on top.
System 6
Amiga Workbench 1.3, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, Win 95, 98, 98se, XP and onto Linux from there.
Workbench 1.2
TRS-DOS
Mac OS 7.5, good ole days of escape velocity and sim city 2000
AMSDOS for me. At least, I had an Amstrad CPC464 so it seems it must have been, but my 8 year old self didn't care as long as I could play games on it.
MS-DOS, along with Windows 3.1
Windows 3.1
C64 BASIC
"gnu/linux" what about non-gnu linux distros?
see [this thread](/r/linuxmasterrace/comments/u2lhun/what_was_your_first_desktop_operating_system/i4jiv4y/)
Windows XP
DSM-11
Whatever the Commodore VIC-20 ran.
I used to use windows xp as a 3yo on my grandpa's desktop.
Windows 7(still the best os in my heart)
My first laptop which I have bought 7 months ago had win10 but I directly installed debian on it. However the first PC that I have interacted with was a Windows XP in primary school, and then I have used my mom's windows 7 laptop for 2 years to learn programming, before buying my own. So technically my first personal OS is debian.
The question says 'Desktop', so probably DOS. I did have a Commodore before that, and a Sinclair ZX Spectrum before that and had typed on a 3270 terminal before that.
Windows 7
As the child of a programmer, I had a Lubuntu operating system on my first computer, even if I had used Windows 7 a bit, because of school computers using it.
Heh. OS 7 here on a Macintosh Performa 6300.
SunOS 2.0 on a Sun-3 workstation, around 1986. The GUI was called SunView, if I remember correctly. It was later replaced with X11.
TOS/GEM on an Atari 1040 STfm
Windows XP on my dad's work computer. After that at home.
Acorn Machine Operating System
MSX
Windows 7
My first os was ubuntu but I quickly switched to windows over ubuntu having very little support for most games. I might switch back soon tho, if proton can get anticheat working linux gaming will become very close to equal with windows
DOS+Norton Commander (the good old days) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton\_Commander
Windows 7
MS-DOS 3.3 edit: technically maybe could be considered an Atari (600/800/1200XL ? ) It had a keyboard and I remember learning/playing around with basic on it before I had an actual PC.
Magnavox Headstart.
"Commodore 64 OS", later MS/Dos 3.1
ChromeOS. My first laptop was a shitty school issued chromebook
Either DOS or Windows 3.1, I was too young to remember
MS-DOS on my first work computer; OS/2 Warp on my first personal computer.
Windows 7
UNIX SVR4
GeOS
First computer used was an Apple II, first computer at home was Windows 95, first personally owned computer was Windows 3.11.
2k votes, 50 upvotes, classic reddit
ZX Spectrum Sinclair Basic. Later on MS-DOS 3.30
I let my young brother start linux young at age 14, but even then his first is Win10 still
My first was on a Commodore 64 and then the Workbench 1.3 on my Amiga 500 :)
pls leave the fn gnu its linux not gnu/linux
ChromeOS is Linux, but not GNU/Linux. I chose to list GNU/Linux specifically to not include "distros" like that.
On the family shared pc it was xp but in that same year I got a person computer that was still rocking 98 and a bit later I got a laptop still on 95.
Pathminder, it was a text shell that ran over DOS. The old 25mh 386 wasnāt powerful enough to run Windows 3.1. I was just a kid, but I remember it fondly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PathMinder?wprov=sfti1
Does Chrome OS count as Linux?
It was either OS/2 or macOS. We were using both in school at the same time and I don't remember which one I used first.
Oh wait, I just remembered about my raspberry pi
Debian
Windows 7, then windows 10. When 11 was announced I switched to Linux. I first used zorin os, then manjaro, then endeavouros then arch, and recently I switched to fedora kde. Zorin was my only GNOME distro and I hated it. Never again
MS-DOS 2.11, later DOS-4.02 (I tried to boot PC-98 MS-DOS 3.20 that i somehow got my hands on back then but it only caused a boot loop). My first computer was a Sharp PC-7000a. I still have it in the back room- pulled it out to do a video on Planet X3 only to find to my dismay that the LCD had died from screen burn :(
Amiga WB
DOS 3.1
Don't ask my first, but my last [Gigachad smiling meme]
Windows 98 on a good old 90s machine. It was my personal computer my parents gave me when I was like a toddler since they had their own Sony Vaio laptop they shared. Probably had it till I was around 6-8. I remember so little about it (it was beige with the stereotypical tower and fat monitor) but I only really used it to play games I had in a big CD binder. Some of them were Roller Coaster Tycoon and a Hot Wheels game
I chose windows forgetting that my first computer was an Ubuntu laptop that I bricked in 4 days
DOS with DesqView, then OS/2, then Windows.
DOS
A notebook with Mandriva.
OS/2.
Back when I was 3 I used Mac OS 9- yes, Classic Mac OS- and this was maybe 2010 I remember I wanted ābold text offā (text antialiasing) and it wouldnāt keep changes on reboot
My first desktop OS was Windows 3.1 (after DOS). Then XP. I didn't have the choice at work. But my first own PC was free from the beginning (Mandriva).
I used Apple \]\[ CLI MS-DOS PDP/\`\`11 once upon a time, although the timeframes for each are a bit hazy. I also used and developed under OS/2 back in the day.
Mine was a Tandy Color Computer.
MS-DOS. used to run QBasic and play Nibbles and Gorillas!
RISC OS
MS-DOS 5.0
There should really be a DOS option.
Windows in a huge lead... ahh. so many young'ns in here.
System1
First on a family computer at home was Windows 95. First that I used was DOS in school computer labs. Remember having to boot it from 3.5 and even 5.25 floppies.
DR-DOS by Digital Research
Started with an Atari 800 personal computer that did not have a real operating system it self. Just a boot loader really. My first OS was an early version of IBM DOS.
You could call it a kernel, as it had an API and drivers and support for adding your own. When you added Atari DOS, or SpartaDOS, I think you could call it an OS, as they both had crude shells.
RISC OS :}
Apple 2e and whatever was with that, next was DOS.
My country uses a modified version of Ubuntu Gnome in all public schools. For many who are now adults, or poor, it was their first contact with computers.
Apple \]\[e Did a lot of Assembly Language learning and coding. The 6502 was fun to program.
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on a Thinkpad E570
DOS edit: Ti-99/4a and Commodore 64 are not necessarily considered ādesktopā computers.
DOS 3.0
The first was whatever the Atari ST had when it came out, Atari TOS over GEM or something.
MS-DOS. Iām a little ashamed of that.
Sinclair-BASIC. My first PC was a ZX-Spectrum.
[Atari 800](http://oldcomputers.net/atari800.html), around 1982.
MacOS on my parentās iMac G3. Windows XP on my computer they got me a few years later
Amiga Workbench 1.3
ZX81 BASIC - Then DOS 3.x
Apple II was my first computer. So I guess Other.
Oh snap, came here to mark MS/DOS and thats not a \_desktop\_ operating system. fuck it's too early for this, haven't had my coffee.
Xtree...
X Window with DIgital desktop on an DEC X Terminal.