Software Freedom Day 2011 is coming!

Saturday 17 September 2011 is Software Freedom Day, a day to celebrate the joys of Free and Open Source Software in all of its forms. Most people know that the Linux operating system is open source but you can even run open Source Software on Windows and the Mac OS. If you use either the Firefox or Google’s Chrome web browser, and especially the Chromium web browser, you’re already using open source software.

There will be Software Freedom Day events all over the world. If you’re already a member of the open source community you can join in the celebration, and if you’re curious about open source software you can check out their website to see what events are happening in your area. Either way you won’t want to miss out on the festivities.

Potentially excellent news for Linux Mint KDE users

I’m afraid I’ve fallen behind with reading posts on the Linux Mint Forums, but I see Boo, the (lead) developer behind the KDE version of Linux Mint, has shared why it’s taking so long to get Linux Mint 11 KDE. As he posted on the Mint 11 KDE development thread a couple of weeks ago there’s a very good reason we haven’t seen any updates in the Testing ISO page at the Mint Community site.

News people!!
Good and bad as it turns out, due to all the Ubuntu problems I am swapping the base from Kubuntu to Debian.
What does this mean? A bit more of a wait but it is DEBIAN!
Hopefully this wont take too long as I have the packages built and the ISO build process is very similar.

It’s not being met with unanimous cheers, though, because some people, with older hardware or other issues, aren’t able to run any of the Debian-based versions of Mint. It’s unfortunate because it seems the Ubuntu devs are definitely not making everyone happy with their delay or lack of interest in fixing bugs introduced with the release of Ubuntu 11.04. As a result KDE users will have to decide between either not upgrading their Linux Mint 10 KDE install or switching to Kubuntu or another KDE release of Linux. It’s unfortunate because Linux Mint gets so many things right, especially with their implementation of KDE, but the change will also make Mint KDE a rolling release and a bit easier to update in the future.

You can find the announcement and user responses over on the Linux Mint KDE development thread at the Linux Mint Forums.

A great app featured on Make Tech Easier: wxBanker

Yesterday the good folks over at Make Tech Easier, a website with some very nice tutorials for technology users on all platforms, wrote a post called Manage Your Finances (Simply) in Linux with wxBanker. I’ve used wxBanker to help me manage my budget when I had a desktop computer (mine died several months ago and I now run Linux Mint KDE on a persistent LiveUSB) and I think the only thing I dislike about it is that it’s only available for Linux users. It may not have all the bells and whistles of apps you may see on Windows or the MacOS but if you’re one of the growing numbers who run Linux I can’t recommend it enough. It’s readily available on Ubuntu and it’s even in the Software manager on Linux Mint.

Rather than rehash what the article says, including how to get wxBanker installed, I’ll just point you to the article on Make Tech Easier. Their tutorials are always good whether you’re a noobie or an old hand, complete with screenshots to help you see how things should look on your system. You may even find that you want to subscribe to their daily newsletter and that’s not a bad idea at all.