It’s easy to argue that Ubuntu’s success is because there’s an unlimited supply of investment from its super-rich parent company, Canonical. But Linux isn’t like any ordinary software stack. More here

Second, Ubuntu came at just the right time. The release of Warty Warthog in 2004 came after years of Linux teething, a period where many PCs and laptops suffered from poor hardware support in the Linux kernel. From a home user’s perspective, almost everything was experimental, from USB modems to your graphics chipset and printer.