Backing up what Alex said. The one thing I remember Aikar saying on his recent livestream was that the development process for 1.8 won't even start until Minecraft is available for Linux. Then you've got updating the server software and plugins. So it'll be a little while. But it'll be worth the wait!
Woke up at the usual 5:30 to play and couldn't log in to EMC...says out of date server...I just updated my end with 1.8...love the granite and a few other goodies so far but like to play on EMC...what's up????
It will go on even if I end up just doing it in the forum post! Im gonna cry in a minute! Its my Birthday and I wanna play on the Empire boo hoo!
Glad to know it's not being rushed out. Nothing worse than trying to play on a buggy update with busted plugins and a chat screen flooded with complaints scrolling by at warp 9!
Luka also I've tried 1.8 it's probably really buggy for most of minecraft so first Mojang got to fix the oringinal bugs before EMC could even add it
EDIT: Ninja'd Just quit minecraft, open it again, click "Edit Profile" then click the "Use Version" dropdown menu and choose Release 1.7.10 . DONE!