Ubuntu was nice because, when it came out, Debian was several years out of date without having done a release. Ubuntu promised to do smaller, incremental releas

Ubuntu was nice because, when it came out, Debian was several years out of date without having done a release. Ubuntu promised to do smaller, incremental releases and do LTS versions as well which is a promise they have kept. I remember trying Debian and having the choice of installing an old ass version of a program or setting up their leading edge version, which often caused problems with system stability. Ubuntu was a good balance - they had new software versions that worked. Not only that but for a long time their default gnome configuration worked very well (back when they had the top and bottom panel thing). Debian very much threw you into it and said "Here's Gnome, have fun!" and you had to spend hours on a second computer learning how to install a browser and configure it (and go through multiple iterations of startx failing because your config was not right, because you were learning stuff). I don't use either any more - most of my linux use is on Raspberry Pi OS, WSL, or in some container or something.