Ubuntu 8.04 LTS ~ Hardy Heron has been released.

The reviews of this release are glowing and all said and done, a worthy upgrade to Gutsy Gibbon.
Lots of new stuff including (copied from the Ubuntu site):

Productivity tools: Ubuntu supports all of your favourite web-based mail programs like Yahoo(TM) or Gmail (TM). But for the office, Evolution provides all the calendering, contacts and full function office email you need. Pidgin IM also puts you in instant touch with colleagues and integrates with your personal IM services simply and easily.

Browsing: Including Mozilla Firefox (Beta 5) - tested and stabilised for a platform. Faster, safer and themed for Ubuntu.

Photos: Upload from your camera or phone to F-Spot and manage, tag, share and sort your photos and upload easily to you favourite social networking sites.

Music and video: Plug in your PSP, iPod, MP3 player; share playlists with your friends; buy in the creative commons online music stores, stream more live radio and plug in more devices with UPnP.

Office applications: Word processing, spreadsheets and presentations can all be delivered through Open Office 2.4. And, they completely integrate with the proprietary office applications out there. The big difference is that they are free.

Accessibility: At the core of the Ubuntu philosophy is the belief that computing is for everyone and access should be free and complete whatever your economic or physical circumstances. Ubuntu is one of the most accessible desktop operating systems around.

This is a long term support version, so updates should be coming thick and fast for about 18 months to 2 years.

I've been running Gutsy Gibbon on my PC at home and was considering changing to Suse Enterprise Desktop from Novell. I think I'll upgrade Gutsy to Hardy and stick with Ubuntu for a while longer.

Remember two things:

1. Ubuntu runs also as a Live CD so you can try before installing and,

2. Ubuntu is completely FREE

Tags: technology, Linux, ubuntu