I liked 8.04 very much and I would recommend this one. I used 9.04 for some
time, then upgraded to 9.10. both are very good.
I installed an older version of PC/OS OpenWorkstation (based on 8.04) on my
large SATA drive but gave up using XFCE (again) and switched to Openbox as WM
and Thunar as file manager.
Then I wiped out 9.10 from my older hard disk and I made a dual boot with
OpenSolaris and an older version of gOS based on Gutsy Gibbon (I hate gOS
Gadgets) by chainloading that strange UNIX variant. Now I have Internet under
both Ubuntu derivatives and no Internet under OpenSolaris. I am planning to
struggle with Internet configuration under openSolaris whenever I am angry.
Now I am writing from under that bad, old gOS.
I have used lots of Ubuntu derivatives and cannot make a decision which one to
stick to. My PC would be very Linux-friendly with another graphics card.