The upcoming availability of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Server Edition for free download on Thursday 24 April was announced by Canonical Ltd. Canonical also announced, in related news, the simultaneous release of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop Edition.

To enhance the performance, stability and security of this fully supported general platform, Ubuntu 8.04 Long Term Support (LTS) Server Edition adds new features. The LTS release sees further expansion of the commercial ecosystem of hardware, software and services vendors supporting Ubuntu Server.

To deploy Ubuntu widely over a period of years, the extended maintenance period meets demand from business users. It also positions Ubuntu Server as a platform on which hardware and software vendors can build commercial solutions. A wide range of vendors are currently testing and certifying the release and many have declared support for Ubuntu 8.04 LTS.

COO of Canonical Ltd., Jane Silber, said: "Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Server Edition is built for business". "This release brings together significant feature and stability improvements to a free and open platform. Ubuntu 8.04 LTS is at the centre of a growing ecosystem of applications that serve businesses of all sizes extremely well. We look forward to seeing its adoption grow across the five years we will support it."

Canonical also announced, as part of its news today, that Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Server Edition is certified on several high performance, energy efficient Sun x64 server platforms, including the Sun Fire X2100 M2, X2200 M2 and Sun Fire X4150 servers. "Sun is committed to providing customers a choice of operating systems on our x64 servers. Sun has worked closely with Canonical since early 2006 and we continue to see growing interest in Ubuntu on Sun platforms", says Vice president of Systems Marketing, Sun Microsystems, Lisa Sieker.