The crucial point you missed was it had a really polished installer, easily better than Windows and contemporary Mac OS. My non-tech friends managed to install

The crucial point you missed was it had a really polished installer, easily better than Windows and contemporary Mac OS. My non-tech friends managed to install it from CDs that came with magazines with almost no guidance. Of course after you have everything setup properly, it is hard to distinguish between distros (other than ..say.. package manager), but those choices do not drive the vast majority of people.