Mini 12 and Ubuntu 8.04 - will there be an upgrade available to 9.x ?

A friend of mine has a Mini 12 running Ubuntu 8.04, and I help him with Linux issues, as I have several years experience. I recently upgraded it to standard Ubuntu 9.04, but found that the DVD player was really jerky; this is apparently a known issue with the linux kernel. Because I could not find an effective solution, I reverted the Mini 12 to 8.04. Does anyone know if Dell plans to release a proper upgrade to Ubuntu 9.x for this machine ? i.e. one that is properly customised for and tested on this hardware ? 8.04 will be two years old in April - pretty old for a Linux OS, no ?

I think the Mni 12 was discontinued - does that mean I'm out of luck ?

AM