I still remember the first time I commandeered our one and only phone line for an entire weekend to download the Slackware ISO. Version 7, if I remember correctly? My parents were pissed.

I was so excited to have a "real" C/C++ development environment for free, after years of using a pirated version of Visual Studio. I installed Slack, and within 45 minutes I had totally hosed the system and had to re-install. Then I did it again and again and again... those were the days :)