I know we all like to shit on what Canonical has become, but you have to respect just how much work they've put into the Linux ecosystem to make it more user friendly and mainstream over the years.
Agreed. Before the dark times, Ubuntu was the kickstarter for "wide" adoption to the "masses" (notice the quotes, lol) and making Linux even more accessible at that time. Similar to a degree of what Valve has an effect nowadays.
I actually never used the very first Ubuntu version and need to test it in a VM too. My first experience with Linux was probably Knoppix and my first installation SUSE Linux 9.2, but it was not ready back then. I switched to Linux full time by removing Windows XP and installing Ubuntu 8.04. Time definitely has passed, you can't argue with that.
I was in those masses. They sent me a free CD in the mail when I was a teenager!
Nice! I read about that they would sent CDs for no cost. Also in countries where internet infrastructure wasn't there yet, they were giving out CDs for free locally in a bus in example, like advertisements. Having a millionaire backing up a distribution surely helped its adoption. :D Actually this was one of the reason why I had confidence in the future of Ubuntu, back then.
I still have one somewhere. 9.10 release. Too bad I have no cd drive.
Sinclair-Speccy@fedia.io to 
I know we all like to shit on what Canonical has become, but you have to respect just how much work they've put into the Linux ecosystem to make it more user friendly and mainstream over the years.
Agreed. Before the dark times, Ubuntu was the kickstarter for "wide" adoption to the "masses" (notice the quotes, lol) and making Linux even more accessible at that time. Similar to a degree of what Valve has an effect nowadays.
I actually never used the very first Ubuntu version and need to test it in a VM too. My first experience with Linux was probably Knoppix and my first installation SUSE Linux 9.2, but it was not ready back then. I switched to Linux full time by removing Windows XP and installing Ubuntu 8.04. Time definitely has passed, you can't argue with that.
I was in those masses. They sent me a free CD in the mail when I was a teenager!
Nice! I read about that they would sent CDs for no cost. Also in countries where internet infrastructure wasn't there yet, they were giving out CDs for free locally in a bus in example, like advertisements. Having a millionaire backing up a distribution surely helped its adoption. :D Actually this was one of the reason why I had confidence in the future of Ubuntu, back then.
I still have one somewhere. 9.10 release. Too bad I have no cd drive.
Still using it.