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!
I still have one somewhere. 9.10 release. Too bad I have no cd drive.
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.
