Ubuntu is to many non-technical computer users the face of Linux. From my past use of Ubuntu 7.04 / 7.10 and more recently 8.04 (Hardy Heron) I’d agree with that it certainly is the distribution of choice among many Linux folk, both geeks and non-geeks.

The latest iteration of Ubuntu brings some improved GUI tweaks with the inclusion of a recent version of GNOME and improves on many other features. One particular thing I like now is the NVIDIA drivers are provided by Canonical Ltd and when new updates are released the system is seamlessly updated. This is a great improvement over the tedious installation required in earlier versions of Ubuntu.

My Linux usage increased in part due to my visits to Russia. On the Dell Inspiron 1520 Ubuntu is responsive, full of great software (thanks to the open source community) and extremely stable.

Some of the features I would like to point out for Ubuntu would be:

Compiz Desktop Effects

The Compiz desktop are pretty much an open source effort to bring the graphical desktop effects found both in Apple’s Mac OS X and Microsoft’s Windows Vista to Linux. Sure some of the graphical effects are over the top but when setup with non-vulgar effects, Compiz provides a graphical desktop experience like no other.

OpenOffice 2.4

OpenOffice provides a suite of applications which can replace Microsoft’s Office in many standard situations. It also provides support for many Microsoft Office file formats, meaning many of your old Word documents and PowerPoint presentations can be opened and edited in OpenOffice.

Firefox 3.0

The Mozilla development team and community have done it again with another fantastic version of the Firefox browser. Originally released in Beta for Ubuntu (future proof the release of 8.04) and now fully stable, the 3.0 version of Firefox provides an “awesome bar” which personally I like, along with many rendering and performance improvements, in particularly memory usage.

Overall I’d give Ubuntu 8.04 the thumbs up; it’s certainly worth giving it a try considering it won’t set you back a penny!