Ubuntu Hardy Alpha 6 plus some great personal finance software
Posted by Peng on 8 March 2008
I meant to post this a few days ago, but Ubuntu has released Alpha 6 of Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy Heron.” Plus if you’re looking for some good financial management software for Linux I may have a program you are looking for.
Among the changes from Ubuntu Hardy Alpha 5 is an updated kernel, plus Xorg 7.3. A new Xorg may not seem like a big deal, but the new version has better autoconfiguration to let users set up a second monitor more easily. They’ve also replaced xvnc4viewer as the default VNC client with Vinagre. The one thing I am unhappy with is that they’ve replaced Firefox 2 with Firefox 3 Beta 3 as the default web browser. I’m sorry, but using beta software should really be the user’s decision, and just because someone is using an alpha version of an OS doesn’t mean they want to use the beta of a web browser. And no, Firefox 3 is not expected to come out before Hardy ships.
You can get the details and download links from the Hardy Heron Alpha 6 wiki page. Thanks to Andre Gondim and Mackenzie from Planet Ubuntu for letting me know this alpha was out.
BillReminder
Og Maciel from Brazil has made a dynamite little app in Python/PyGtk called BillReminder that may be just what the doctor ordered if you’re looking for a Linux program to help you remember to pay bills on time, especially if the bills arrive some time before they become due. The best part is that it has a daemon that runs in the background so you don’t even need to actually launch BillReminder to get notifications.
I expect this is the last post I need to write about software updates this weekend. Don’t forget to set your clocks ahead if where you live starts Daylight Saving Time tonight.
Susan Kishner said
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Susan Kishner
Peng said
I just checked out the i386 Desktop LiveCD and I was pleasantly surprised to see that for the first time ever it didn’t have any problems with my Nvidia MX200 video card. A quick check of what’s on the disc looks pretty good. I had upgraded my kernel to 2.6.24-12-generic using walkerk’s script (I had run the upgrade to Hardy’s 2.6.24-11-generic a few days ago with no issues) but when it came up my sound card was dead; the LiveCD had no issues with my sound card.
I’d go ahead and make the upgrade on my desktop except for the warnings against using it on the computer you use on a daily basis, which I do.
As soon as I make the upgrade to a testing version of Hardy I’ll definitely post a review.