I remember 2005 when I ordered the Ubuntu CD to the middle of nowhere with just a dial up connection and receiving a package from UK felt like magic. It was my first hands-on experience with GNU/Linux.
Time flies. Things change. "The year of Linux on the desktop" is always next year. I am grateful to Canonical and Mark Shuttleworth for all their work that was done back then. For a lot of people, Ubuntu became their entrypoint to the world of open source, tinkering and Linux ecosystem.