The waiting is finally over, the Canonical has released the second LTS, long term support of Ubuntu 8.04 codename Hardy Heron to the public today. Ubuntu 8.04 will be officially supported and maintained by Ubuntu team for three years on desktop and five years on server.
The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Long-Term Support) on desktop and server, continuing Ubuntu’s tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution.
For Ubuntu 7.10 user, you can upgrade to Ubuntu 8.04 via update manager and for others, you can download Ubuntu 8.04 from the Ubuntu official website and other mirrors. You also can request free CDs of Ubuntu 8.04. You don’t have to worry about the shipping cost, it will be shipped by Canonical free of charge. You just need to fill up a form.
Download: Ubuntu 8.04
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It’s 4 more days to go until the final version of Ubuntu 8.04, Hardy Heron hit the street. The CEO of Canonical, Mark Shuttleworth guarantees that this version will make it on time. So, for all Ubuntu fans out there (including me), you don’t have to worry. You will get it for sure.
If you go to Ubuntu official website, you will see a link to download a release candidate of Hardy Heron. If you don’t want to wait until the final version come out, you can try this release candidate version and upgrade to stable version later. The release candidate version is considered complete and stable for testing by the Ubuntu development team.
Some updates include in this version are:
- The latest Gnome 2.22.1 with new version of Nautilus file manager
- The 2.6.24-16.30 kernel which is base on 2.6.24.3
- Firefox 3 beta 5 as the default browser
- The PulseAudio sound server is integrated in the Gnome Desktop
- New screen resolution utility
- Wubi installer for easier installation for new user
To get a full list of new features since Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon you can check this page
On April 10, Mandriva has released it’s popular Mandriva Linux distribution to the public. You can read my previous post to know about some improvements and new features added to this distribution.
Jochem wrote a review in his blog about this new released.
A while ago I took a look at Mandriva 2008 Spring RC1 inside VirtualBox. Today, the 2008 Spring final release was announced. I decided to install it on my main laptop (Acer 5920). Here’s a few quick notes. Perhaps a full review will follow later. This time I downloaded the One GNOME i586 version.
The announcement seems to have been made a bit too soon unfortunately. Not all mirrors listed by Mandriva had the all iso’s up already. I needed to use BitTorrent to download the GNOME One version of the ISO. I was unable to find an x86_64 version. Pretty strange. 64 Bit hardware has been in common use for about three years now here, but software support still seems abysmal 
About the install: After starting the Live Install, it complained about not being able to mount an USB stick. I clicked the notice away, an install continued without problems. I noticed the Netherlands is now listed in the “Other countries” list. Thanks Adam and Mandriva team! (see comments on previous review).
You can read a full review in his blog
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Yesterday, Mandriva has released its latest distribution, Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring.
Mandriva, the leading European Linux distributor, today announces the launch of Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring, the major new release of Mandriva Linux, featuring hundreds of improvements which make for a quicker and more powerful distribution that is easier to use than ever.
Here a list of improvements made:
- A new parental control utility
- The Elisa multimedia center,manage your photos, music and videos
- Easy synchronization with mobile devices
- Software updates include KDE 3.5.9, GNOME 2.22, OpenOffice.org 2.4, Linux kernel 2.6.24.4, X.org 7.3, Compiz 0.7
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On March 26, 2008, OpenOffice.org community had released a free and open source office suite, OpenOffice.org 2.4. This released will be the last of 2.0 version before the release of new OpenOffice.org 3.0 which is expected to be on September or October 2008.
The OpenOffice.org Community is pleased to announce the release of OpenOffice.org 2.4, the latest version of the leading open source office productivity suite. OpenOffice.org 2.4 includes many new features, enhancements, and bug fixes to all its core components.
Here are some improvements made to this new released:
Download: OpenOffice.org 2.4
On March 21, Canonical has released the first public beta version of Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron. Its about a month left until the release of stable version of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Hardy Heron. Here are some of the improvements made by the developers that distinguish Hardy Heron from Gutsy Gibbon.
- Latest version of Xorg (7.3)
- Linux 2.6.24-12.13 kernel based on 2.6.24.3 which bring support for amd64 power saving ( this is a good news for me)
- Gnome 2.22 is the default desktop environment. Kubuntu 8.04 comes with KDE 3.5 or KDE 4
- Firefox 3 beta 4 is the default web browser
- GTK’s version of the Transmission bittorent client
- PulseAudio is enabled by default
- New PolicyKit manager for advanced permission controls
- Vinagre
- Brasero CD/DVD burning application, replaces the Serpentine CD burning utility
- World Clock Applet
- Native PDF support
- Wubi installer which allows Windows users to install and uninstall Ubuntu like any other Windows application (a good features to attract Windows user to the world of Linux)
Since this is still a beta version, therefore you are not recommended to install it on production machines. The full version of Ubuntu 8.04 is due out on April 24th.
