Gosh, this makes me think... and I'm embarrassed, as this really dates me :-)
When the first personal computers started to arrive in the mid-1970s, I was smitten by computers like the Altair 8800 and the Sol-20. I wanted one so badly. S-100, CP/M, and later MP/M were the common talk items of the day. Couldn't afford them at the time.
In 1978/79 I purchased one of the early Apple II computers to come off of the production line. As I recall it had 48K memory, a 16K memory expansion card, two floppy disks, and Pascal and Apple DOS. Fantastic computer.
In 1987 I worked as a Digital Equipment Corporation resident engineer at Apple Computer in Cupertino, CA, where they ran DEC VAX/VMS and, as I recall, some BSD Unix. While there, I acquired a bunch of Apple Lisa computers. Most ran the Apple Lisa OS, but one ran SCO Linux. My first personal hands-on exposure to Linux. opinion: The Apple Lisa was one of the best designed computers of all time, and Lisa OS thank you Xerox PARC was way ahead of its time.
I learned about Ubuntu by knowing that I didn't want any Microsoft OS's, and that Linux might be a good alternative. I had been using Apple Macintosh OS's for many years. In those days we didn't have the same Internet resources as we have today, but I did some research, and Ubuntu came out as a clear possibility, so I installed it. Been with Ubuntu ever since. Ubuntu has it's little anomalies, but it's still a better choice for me.
Fast forward to about 2008, before AskUbuntu even existed, and I was probably running Ubuntu 8.10, maybe even an earlier version. For me, it was a much better choice than Microsoft DOS, or any of the Microsoft Windows variants. Gosh, don't you just hate the Windows updates?!? I'm now running Ubuntu 20.04, and upgrading my computer(s) to the recent 20.10. I've been on AskUbuntu now for 10 years! Happy Birthday AskUbuntu! Hard to believe! My Profile.
Now, since about 2017, I've been contributing back to the community, by helping others with Ubuntu questions and problems.