Ubuntu 8.04 Released

Posted April 25th, 2008 in Linux/Unix/BSD

Ubuntu 8.04 was released on Thursday 24th of April 2008, which is today (Friday) New Zealand time, along with the related projects: Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu and Ubuntu Studio. Ubuntu is probably the world's most popular Linux distribution and each six monthly release is eagerly anticipated. You can buy Ubuntu and the others from my Linux CD Mall website. Thanks to offering it up for pre-order earlier in the week, it has skyrocketed up my "Most Popular" list for April, currently in 2nd place after Knoppix.

Ubuntu is the original version and is based on Debian. The Ubuntu project was founded by Mark Shuttleworth, who made around half a billion US dollars when he sold Thawte, a secure certificate etc company, to Verisign in 1999. Ubuntu uses the Gnome desktop environment and comes in a "desktop" edition which you can boot directly from the CD without installing to your computer, and the install later on if you choose. It also has an "alternate install" edition which has a text mode installer with additional install options. And finally a server edition without a GUI.

Kubuntu is similar to Ubuntu but comes with the KDE desktop environment. I personally prefer KDE over Gnome and am currently writing this using the Opera web browser on a Kubuntu 7.10 install.

Xubuntu is a more lightweight system than either Ubuntu or Kubuntu and uses the Xfce desktop environment.

Edubuntu is aimed at educational use, and used to come in a install CD with the educational stuff on it. In the 8.04 release it is now just an add-ons CD which you install onto an Ubuntu installation.

Ubuntu Studio is the newest of the Ubuntu project's official derivitives, and has been designed for multimedia creation and editing, with a Linux kernel modified into a low-latency state for intensive audio work.

There are a number of other Linux distributions which are based on Ubuntu and we are sure to see releases of these in the coming days.