Official Support for Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron Will Be Ended in 2011, May

Hardy Heron was released in 2008, April. Now it's been almost 36 months and according to Ubuntu's law ;-), the "LTS" (long term support) will be ended within 3 years from its first launching date. So, if you still use the "8.04" edition, the be aware that after May 12th 2011, Canonical won't give you updates or bug fixes for your OS.

Ubuntu 8.04 desktop... remember ;-)

So, as a humble advice, you should consider upgrading into the latest LTS version of Ubuntu which is the 10.04. In that case you can read this post for further instructions. Or, just make your backups and install a fresh version of Ubuntu 10.04 or the latest 10.10 (not LTS).

If you use the 8.04 server edition however, Canonical will still release major bug fixes for it nonetheless.