What I am looking forward to in Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron)

I’m not sure if there is really more to this release than average but it seems like there are more changes I’m interested in than in some past Ubuntu releases. I thought it would be good to compile a list and then do a review after the release. I also want to try and find issues that I want addressed that haven’t been so I can push for their inclusion before it is too late.

Some things that are already present:

• mysql-proxy - Good to see this packaged.
• silcd - Good to see this packaged.
• KDE 4 - Not sure if KDE 4.0 will be as great as I would like but I’m anxious to try it out.
• Firefox 3 - Definitely looking forward to a better firefox.
• X.Org 7.3 - With Bullet Proof X. Should be a welcome improvement.
• PulseAudio - A good replacement for ESD.
• Xen 3.2 - New version of the Hypervisor and tools.
• LKCD Support - This should be nice for systems administrators.
• Shorewall 4.0 - Always nice to have a newer Shorewall.
• Eclipse 3.2.2 - My current Rails development environment of choice.
• NetBeans 6.0.1 - Perhaps 6.0.1 fixes the performance bugs I experienced in 6.0.
• Linux Kernel 2.6.24 - Changes in 2.6.23, Changes in 2.6.24

Some things I would like to see:

• Resolving Gaim doesn’t include SILC support - A bug report that will be almost 2 years old by the time Ubuntu 8.04 is released and which has always been trivial to fix. I hear that it is fixed in Debian Lenny so hopefully it will be fixed in Ubuntu Hardy as well.
• MySQL 5.1 - This doesn’t seem likely as the Debian mysql-server-5.1 package is currently confined to the Experimental repository. Perhaps it really isn’t ready for production but there are features I’d like to at least try on some development systems.