Ubuntu is, according to DistroWatch, the #1 Linux distribution. That’s a huge feat in itself. However, once you realize that Ubuntu is only three and a half years old, the feat is much bigger. How did the Linux rookie beat out the nine-year-old Mandrake, the fourteen-year-old SUSE, or the fifteen-year-old Debian?

Reason 1: Ease of use

This is the number one reason that any product takes off. If you’ve got a product meant for the masses, it needs to be easy to use. When Ubuntu came out, Debian was still using a text-based installer. Ubuntu adopted the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) philosophy and made sure that their project stayed along those guidelines. You don’t have to know bash from zsh to use Ubuntu, unlike many of the other Linux distributions. Most of the programs have labels that explain what they do (Disk Analyzer, Word Processor, etc). That’s why Ubuntu has the reputation of having everything just work great. That’s the reputation that catapulted OS X into second place in the operating system wars, and that’s the reputation that will bring Linux back into play.

Reason 2: Perfect balance between ease and power

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