Ubuntu 8.04 has been released! I, like many are now in the process of burning the ISO images to CD ready to install / upgrade, however there is something that should be done before you even burn that iso image. Because of the nature of the Internet, trunctated connections are common place particularly during server stress (e.g. during a distribution release) and as such, you need to check the CD images you have downloaded are in fact 100% complete and accurate - this could save you a massive headache later on.
There are a huge variety of such utilities for Windows, Linux and Mac. Once you have the utility and the CD image, it’s MD5 checksum needs to be calculated. Once this is done, the calculated MD5 hash needs to be compared to the ‘official’ MD5 hash for the specific file you have tried to download. The MD5s are not easy to find as Canonical do not post them with the download links (which is what most people do.) Instead, you will have to goto the ftp mirror directory and find the MD5SUMS files.
To save you looking, here are the MD5 sums of the Hardy Heron Ubuntu images:
For Ubuntu:
7d0ac92c56361949d099dd9337c975e7 *ubuntu-8.04-alternate-amd64.iso
166991d61e7c79a452b604f0d25d07f9 *ubuntu-8.04-alternate-i386.iso
fc43f665ba51c4be0d95c011aefef45d *ubuntu-8.04-desktop-amd64.iso
8895167a794c5d8dedcc312fc62f1f1f *ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso
8a73cf85b04f37d5d91fb436525ea395 *ubuntu-8.04-server-amd64.iso
c3162b21757746c64a0a22cdd060b164 *ubuntu-8.04-server-i386.iso
cdd32124f23b455b0aa22cc3ff35ff35 *wubi.exe
a96aa69961f3ed80dd7a88fae1e28196 *wubi.exe
For Kubuntu:
fe122a713c5945dbbff035b16848ae47 *kubuntu-8.04-alternate-amd64.iso 94b892ac78fdb4d1f164e7bd0f7da2ca *kubuntu-8.04-alternate-i386.iso 99da350d4163ee046a00ef1dda81be6a *kubuntu-8.04-desktop-amd64.iso 8aebb0dc17588d22dd3bb59d7df71061 *kubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso
For Kubuntu with KDE 4.x: (these servers are being particularly hammered at the moment)
8a822b70f1e169f462727cb885e2b565 *kubuntu-kde4-8.04-alternate-amd64.iso b7195c72b564b3676e584cb774e9002c *kubuntu-kde4-8.04-alternate-i386.iso 3028e26593a29b007c8878f0fbbe5639 *kubuntu-kde4-8.04-desktop-amd64.iso 1933f11ccea58de5bc80549774479031 *kubuntu-kde4-8.04-desktop-i386.iso
For Edubuntu:
210822f1d1d618153a4fdf993c5c3fe7 *edubuntu-8.04-addon-amd64.iso 7259d6f34c5f09e26927c39066833d03 *edubuntu-8.04-addon-i386.iso
And Xubuntu:
c83b84dc02b9e5480d64d2accdd9f3bb *xubuntu-8.04-alternate-amd64.iso 4f398cd35eaf297347f18634a5be5d77 *xubuntu-8.04-alternate-i386.iso 0fb2297b036d9d1bf4cc0a13a4d82f76 *xubuntu-8.04-desktop-amd64.iso 665bcc283e131be4cb71ecb2bf0e3794 *xubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso
These are correct as of 24/04/08 @ 15:51 GMT, Enjoy the new release 
Update, the issue with the MD5 of wubi.exe has been corrected. Hashes are now correct as of 27/04/08 11:23 GMT.
