Oof. I am pretty sure it was Mandrake in 97. I bounced around trying what was around before settling on Gentoo for a decade plus. Then both my laptop and desktop got too long in the tooth to make distcc even worthwhile and migrated to Arch. I figured it was the closest distro to Gentoo that I wouldn’t have too many problems. I don’t know howong it’s been now, but I’m an Arch fangirl. I’ve installed it many times since on work computers as well. For remote systems though, it’s always Debian stable.
I officially switched my work laptop to linux after the security wonks made it impossible for me to have both network interfaces up amd connected at the same time. As a network engineer working in an airgapped lab prepping new equipment for deployment, it made it pretty hard for me to transfer and install software to the new equipment and consult online documentation. I asked, I received a non-answer, so I just did it. I don’t keep it a secret, I follow all of the recommended security practices, and no one has complained to me.