> I've only heard of Yellow Dog, but for many modern distros, the transition from "flash this file to a USB drive using this program, plug in, and turn the computer on" seems like it should be a much more accessible option (even for people without an Apple budget) than it was even 10 years ago.

Yeah, this was over 15 years ago. Yellow Dog was basically Red Hat PowerPC edition, so imagine Red Hat circa 2002.

Things have certainly gotten easier since then though, no question.