Ubuntu - what's the big deal?

So I've been hearing about ubuntu all over the place, and couldn't see what was so great about it. It couldn't be the cleavage in the splash screen, cuz there's free boobies all over the 'net and they took it out anyway. All that the home page says is that ubuntu will be free for ever (which must surely be a first among linux distros). I even tried googling for ubuntu fuss etc. and found threads where someone wants to know what's the fuss, but I couldn't find any concrete answers. So I decided to try it myself, with the live CD. Turns out the live CD is basically gnoppix. It felt faster than I would expect a live CD to be, and much faster than knoppix, but I think that's just a gnome vs. kde thing.

So I still can't understand what the fuss is about.