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Ubuntu 20th Anniversary

I was surprized to read that it is Ubuntu’s 20th anniversary–honestly, that’s pretty cool.

There are not a lot of new features for version 24.10 marking the milestone, but seems like improvements to the installer–which is fitting, because I think what was so great about Ubuntu in the early days was having a relatively easy to use install process, enabling people to actually get started on linux easier.

I’ve used Ubuntu since almost the beginning! I was a poor college student. I could pick up discarded old laptops on campus for free. The batteries were bad. Windows was bad and making them unusably slow and cumbersome. But I could plug in a usb drive, install Ubuntu, and have a great running computer. Something that just worked, had no sketchy bloatware, and fit my budget of zero.

People still complain that Linux is too weird and hard or tech elitist–I never quite understand. I was a Classical Studies student. I didn’t have any technical training or interest in computers. I worked construction and as a studio artist, so I guess I was willing to be hands on to figure something out.

This allowed me to actually have a functional computer. Once installed, it was just a perfectly normal computer, easy to use.

My partner has been an Ubuntu user now for 15 years, and she seriously has no idea what Linux or Ubuntu is. It’s never come up. If you said “operating system” she would have no clue what you mean. It’s just a computer that works great.

Honestly, that’s pretty amazing. So, thank you Ubuntu and happy anniversary.

If you want to learn more, Try Linux!