RIP: 8.04 Desktop Dies on May 12

[earthpigg]

as a lover of History, this makes me sad.

[earthpigg]

I think I started with 7.04 even though 7.10 was already out - after installing, I immediately followed the "Continue" prompts and upgraded to 7.10. The upgrade went perfectly, IIRC. Someone had handed me a ShipIt 7.04 ShipIt CD that sat in a drawer gathering dust for six months, and I later purchased a laptop with early Windows Vista preinstalled (who wouldn't be driven to some zany alternative operating system by that abomination?).

I didn't come to Linux because I gave a crap about unix or open source or the command line or rms or anything else. I came to Linux because I estimated it potentially as less crappy than pre-service-pack-1 Vista.

If not for ShipIt, I may never have discovered Open Source Software. And now, a zillion ubuntuforums.org beans or posts or whatever later... 7.10 was nice, but 8.04 sealed the deal for me. Aside from my cellular phone and TI-83 calculator, I haven't had another operating system installed on any computer in my house since then -- not even a Cable Box or DVD Player. My mom and best friend are happy Ubuntu users, and I get fewer "fix this!" phone calls now than I ever did in the past.

And, I don't even mention the hundreds of hours I poured into Masonux with its several thousand downloads before Lubuntu came out....

None of this would have happened without Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop LTS. It's also gotten me laid, but I can't talk about that here.

For all of those reasons and more, the demise of 8.04 and ShipIt are both saddening to me.

[Giant Speck]

Ubuntu 8.04 was the first version of Ubuntu I ever used. Technically, I originally installed Ubuntu 7.10, but it was right after 8.04 had been released, so I went ahead and upgraded almost immediately after finding that fact out.

[user1397]

I'll definitely miss hardy heron. It was truly one of the best releases IMHO. I was only on it for 6 months before upgrading, but I still remember it, unlike several releases after it.

[earthpigg]

I still remember it, unlike several releases after it.

yeah, seriously.... 9.10? what was that?

exactly. i have no idea what it was.

[Giant Speck]

I remember being really upset about upgrading to 8.10 because it meant I couldn't use KDE 3 anymore. I didn't even try to touch Kubuntu again until 10.04.

[aG93IGRvIGkgdWJ1bnR1Pw==]

I remember testing it, seeing no significant improvements or advantages over Debian Testing, and never looking at it again.

[Sand & Mercury]

we still don't have curved corners on this menu without bashing our head up against a titanium wall, first. what is up with that?? And, how did this Portuguese speaking dude manage to accomplish it? a timeless mystery! Go ahead, click on "Applications" in 2011. Still no curves, all 90 degree right angles. That is utter crap, but some folks could avoid it even in 2008.

That's a mockup.

[Johnsie]

The brown versions were so much better than the purple apple-wannabe mess.

[Grenage]

8.04 was only out the other day! Next thing you'll know, we'll be having nostalgia over last Saturday.

When I were a lad...