Which Linux distribution is considered the first ever released?

MCC Interim Linux is generally considered the first Linux distribution released for independent installation.

It was created by Owen Le Blanc at the Manchester Computing Centre in the United Kingdom and first released in February 1992. Before MCC, Linux was commonly distributed as source code or as extremely minimal Boot-Root floppy images. Those images could boot a kernel and provide basic tools, but they were not a complete, user-friendly distribution in the later sense.

MCC’s purpose was to make Linux usable by people who were not Unix experts. It bundled the kernel with utilities, development tools, and a menu-driven installation process. Its first release was based on Linux 0.12 and used a ramdisk so the boot floppy could be reused while additional utility disks were accessed.

Softlanding Linux System, or SLS, appeared later in 1992 and became influential because it included a broader software collection and the X Window System. Slackware and Debian followed in 1993, and both outlasted MCC. Thus, “first ever” refers to MCC’s historical status as an installable Linux distribution, not the earliest Linux boot media of any kind.