Ubuntu 8.04 was released last week. As I've been doing some development recently I thought I'd take this baby for a test drive and I'm glad I did. Ubuntu 8.04 as a desktop application is sweet. I'm from a windows background at this is the first time I've taken a serious look at an alternative. Once downloaded I search for a few development tools, gPHP edit, Rapid SVN, Filezilla ftp which can all be located from within the operating systems package manager Synaptic. Synaptic then downloads the latest releases from the internet and installs them for you. As you can imagine, you don't need your credit card for all these applications as they're all licensed under the GNU (General Public License) model.

Get it downloaded and install it as dual boot if you're unsure, it simply sits under windows 'add/remove programs' list so you can remove it whenever you want, but I'll doubt you will!

Cheers
Ryan Partington