Ubuntu really was a big step forward for ease of setup back when it first came out, but other distros have since caught up. I think the ultimate success of an open source project is when they make themselves obsolete because they had such a big impact on the eco system at large. I think Ubuntu achieved their main goal, but once they did that they ended up adding a bunch of bloat to distinguish themselves as the intro user option.
POS Ubuntu giving me repo cancer every other week making me think Linux for desktop was not ready.
Then I tried Debian (and XFCE) and realized Ubuntu was just on some drugs and eventually landed on Fedora after demoing some distros.
Ubuntu really was a big step forward for ease of setup back when it first came out, but other distros have since caught up. I think the ultimate success of an open source project is when they make themselves obsolete because they had such a big impact on the eco system at large. I think Ubuntu achieved their main goal, but once they did that they ended up adding a bunch of bloat to distinguish themselves as the intro user option.