Ubuntu Hardy Heron LTS is Out
April 25th, 2008 | by rey |
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS or Hardy Heron Desktop Edition is finally out and is available for download as of April 24, 2008.
LTS stands for Long Term Support which means you get 3 years of support for the Desktop Edition and 5 years for the Server Edition where a non-LTS version normally gets just 1.5 years of updates.
Hardy Heron has many great and exciting features:
a) Mozilla Firefox 3 (Beta 5) coupled with a secure OS means fast browsing and reduced exposure to spyware and viruses.
b) For the photo buffs, F-Spot is the enhanced default photo manager which has improved camera and phone recognition means users can upload, tag, manage, display, delete, print and share photos with friends and family more easily.
c) For the music sharing and download experience, users can plug in a PSP, share playlists with friends, buy from the Magnatune online music store, stream live radio and plug in more devices than ever with Universal Plug and Play (sounds like a Windows feature…).
d) The new default movie player now allows users to browse YouTube and other video sources across the web and to share their videos with others. It integrates with Myth TV, the open source TVR, so users can watch their favourite TV shows straight on the desktop. Brasero allows them to easily burn all content to CD or DVD.
e) A great looking user interface with the latest GNOME applications with desktop visual effects, giving users a smoother, better-looking and more intuitive experience.
f) Lotus Notes and Domino have been designed to work seamlessly on 8.04 LTS bringing highly scalable messaging and industry-leading collaboration especially to corporate users.
This version of the open source operating system is targeted for corporate users who usually have a longer upgrade planning cycle. Even though a new version is usually released every 6 months (for example 8.10 will rear its pretty head this coming October), some companies would rather stick to a platform that has been optimized and proven stable for their needs instead of risking instability by deploying a whole new system every 6 months. Hence the availability of LTS.
The Operating System and support will always be available free of charge. It’s so free they’d actually ship an installer CD to you for free. Just head over here to order. I ordered a copy of Gutsy Gibbon or version 7.10 when it came out. Be prepared to wait up to 2 months for it depending on where you are in the world if you opt to get it through the mail.
But why wait for it in the mail when you can download the thing. Well one possible reason is you have dial-up and the nearest neighbor is 200 miles away… But if you’ve got the bandwidth you can go over to the download site, get it, burn the ISO to a CD and you’re all set.
According to the Ubuntu.com website:
Since its launch in October 2004 Ubuntu has become one of the most highly regarded Linux distributions with millions of users around the world.
Ubuntu will always be free to download, free to use and free to distribute to others. With these goals in mind, Ubuntu aims to be the most widely used Linux system, and is the centre of a global open source software ecosystem.
I don’t see them failing at that goal. Go Open Source!
