The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the Release Candidate for Ubuntu
8.04 LTS (Long-Term Support) on desktop and server. Codenamed "Hardy
Heron", 8.04 LTS continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of integrating the
latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution.

This release candidate is considered to be complete, stable, and suitable for
testing by any user.

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop Edition features incremental improvements to
familiar applications, with an emphasis on stability for this second Ubuntu
long-term support release, and is easier than ever to try out with the new
Wubi installer.

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Server Edition follows in the footsteps of Ubuntu 7.10 with even more virtualization support and security enhancements - enabling AppArmor for more applications by default, improving protection of kernel memory against attacks, and supporting KVM and iSCSI technologies out of the box.

The Ubuntu 8.04 LTS family of variants, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, UbuntuStudio, and Mythbuntu, also reach RC status today.

The final release of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS is scheduled for 24 April 2008 and will be supported for three years on the desktop and five years on the server.

You can download it and read the features and docs from here