I think the same. Even if today I'm a die hard HJKL user, Emacs' doctor and the whole nerdiness world from M-x doctor to M-x fortune among M-x dunnet (and the rest of the games) opened a total new world instead of the damn boring Microsoft world with their own obscure terms making things nearly undiscoverable and very difficult to understand because there was no complete documentation for the end user.
Later, in mid-2000's, the 3 DVD based Debian Sarge came with everything. Documentation, serious software, programming tools, mega nerd/geek games, the Anarchist FAQ, crazy fortune files, nerd lore and whatnot. You could snoop your BTTV and later DVB signals on the fly (even decode some channels my normal TV wasn't able to do), break tons of limits on cable TV sets (even override them)... it was magical.