The new Linux desktop is here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2183775/kobo-desktop.deb
Per Kobo: "You may recognize the URL as the one that's been floating around the Kobo MR forum for a number of months. Please note that this is specifically for Ubuntu systems. Using programs like 'alien' to convert it to an RPM may or may not let you upgrade your eReader to 1.8 since we rely on 'udev' to look for its rule files in certain spots."