On October 20, 2004, Ubuntu 4.10 was released, codenamed “Warty Warthog”. It was a start with marketing, something that was not common at the time. The first version of Ubuntu was a big hit with Linux users.
19 years later and Ubuntu continues to lead, from the cloud to the cluster, from desktops to data centers.
Ubuntu 4.10 fit on a single CD. It could detect the computer hardware and automatically configure the drivers. It drastically simplified the installation of X — a real pain at the time!
Canonical has also chosen to offer the Ubuntu CD for free. Anyone could request a copy of the CD release. At the time it was something that did not go unnoticed. For those who remember it was a time when high speed broadband did not exist.
The original motto of the distribution was “Linux for Human Beings”. It was apt because Ubuntu, more than any Linux distribution, cared about the entire user experience, not just installation, application selection, or appearance.
Since then we've seen Ubuntu beyond enterprise desktops, the cloud and IoT, due to the very good support (the distro's forums leave no question unanswered) and the security offered by Canonical.
Of course I couldn't not mention Debian, the distribution that Ubuntu is based on. Canonical's move at the time was a wise one:
It used the stability of the Debian distribution, with all the conveniences it doesn't offer, that is, for example, the automatic detection and installation of drivers.
