This is from 5.10. Warty 4.10 was the first Linux distro I actually installed, after only using a Knoppix live CD previously. I miss those days. A lot has improved for Linux but it seemed like Ubuntu was onto something. Then in 2010s they lost their way.
Have told this story many times but it's due to the nostalgia of an era that seems long gone.
One day after a lectureship at unit there was some hackathon with people demoing computers with Linux. I got to see the compiz cube thing and my jaw dropped. They gave my friends and me one of these pictured, an Ubuntu 5.10 CD (I still have it somewhere in pristine state) so thanks to Ubuntu is how I got into Linux.
I wholeheartedly agree with everything that OP has said. You could feel the ubuntu everywhere, from the logo, the color scheme, visual theme, wallpaper and icons (and the 'simplicity' and cleverness of Gnome 2) all the way up to how the help pages were phrased and of course their motto, "Linux for human beings".
It felt cozy. It make me feel like my computer was indeed mine. At that point I didn't even knew using a computer could be felt like that. It's been 20 years, some 4 years after that I moved on to use Gentoo, but I still remember and miss that old Ubuntu feeling.
So that's why I have bittersweet thoughts about Ubuntu: on one hand, as with many people, it was my gateway into Linux and thus it changed the way I use and interact with computers forever; on other hand, it was really sad to see what it has become.
what it has become?
"Hey who wants to test our new coreutils in prod? Nobody? Fuck y'all you're doing it anyway"
Remember when you could fill out a form online and they would send you a disk. That was my first intro to Linux. I ordered each new version and wish I would have kept those disks.
I couldn’t have said it better.