Articles by Jack M. Germain

Hackers planted malware on StatCounter to steal bitcoin revenue from Gate.io account holders, according to Eset researcher Matthieu Faou, who discovered the breach. The malicious code was added to StatCounter's site-tracking script last weekend, he reported Tuesday....

Feren OS is a nice alternative to Linux Mint and an easy stepping stone to transition to Linux from Microsoft Windows or macOS I am a long-time user of Linux Mint, but I am falling out of love with it. Mint is getting stale. It is annoyingly sluggish at times. I run it on a number of computers and experience the same symptoms on a variety of hardwa...

The cloud computing landscape may look much different to enterprise users following the announcement earlier this week of IBM's agreement to acquire Red Hat. IBM plans to purchase Red Hat, a major provider of open source cloud software, for US$34 billion. IBM will acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Red Hat for $190 per sha...

Open source led to a new software development and distribution model that offered an alternative to proprietary software. No single event takes the prize for starting the technology revolution. However, Feb. 3, 1998, is one of the more significant dates On that day, Christine Peterson, a futurist and lecturer in nanotechnology, coined the "open sou...

Linux apps can now run in a Chromebook's Chrome OS environment. However, the process can be tricky, and it depends on your hardware's design and Google's whims It is somewhat similar to running Android apps on your Chromebook, but the Linux connection is far less forgiving. If it works in your Chromebook's flavor, though, the computer becomes much ...

The 2018 Open Source Technology Jobs Report shows rapid growth in the demand for open source technical talent, with Linux skills a must-have requirement for entry-level positions The seventh annual report from The Linux Foundation and Dice, released Wednesday, identifies Linux coding as the most sought-after open source skill. Linux-based container...

The MakuluLinux Flash distro is splashy and fast with a spiffy new look and new features MakuluLinux developer Jacque Montague Raymer on Thursday announced the second of this year's three major releases in the Series 15 distro family. The Flash edition follows last month's LinDoz edition release. The much-awaited innovative Core edition will debut ...

Manjaro Linux offers the best of two worlds. It puts a user-friendly face on an Arch-based distro, and it gives you a choice of sensible and productive desktop interfaces....

Antergos 8.9, released last month, is one of the better Arch Linux options. It is a powerful and modern computing platform, elegantly designed. It gives power users almost all they could desire....

Independent software vendors, along with Internet of Things and cloud vendors, are involved in a market transformation that is making them look more alike. The similarities are evident in the way they approach software security initiatives, according to a report from Synopsys Synopsys on Tuesday released its ninth annual Building Security in Maturi...

The MakuluLinux distro is now something brand new and very inviting....

Linux and the open-source business model are far different today than many of the early developers might have hoped. Neither can claim a rags-to-riches story. Rather, their growth cycles have been a series of hit-or-miss milestones The Linux desktop has yet to find a home on the majority of consumer and enterprise computers. However, Linux-powered ...

Widespread use of unpatched open-source code in the most popular Android apps distributed by Google Play has caused significant security vulnerabilities, suggests an American Consumer Institute report released Wednesday Thirty-two percent -- or 105 apps out of 330 of the most popular apps in 16 categories sampled -- averaged 19 vulnerabilities per ...

The official release of version 3 of Linux Mint Debian Edition hit the download servers at summer's end, offering a subtle alternative to the distro's Ubuntu-based counterpart Codenamed "Cindy," the new version of LMDE is based on Debian 9 Stretch and features the Cinnamon desktop environment. Its release creates an unusual situation in the world o...

Bodhi Linux is an alternative to traditional Linux OSes that can change your desktop user experience It is one of the very few Linux distributions using Moksha, a fork of the Enlightenment desktop....

Quirky Linux is a classic example of what makes Linux such a varied and useful operating system....

Oracle on Wednesday announced that it has open-sourced GraphPipe to enhance machine learning applications The project's goal is to improve deployment results for machine learning models, noted Project Leader Vish Abrams. That process includes creating an open standard....

The Document Foundation on Wednesday announced the availability of its second major release this year, LibreOffice Fresh 6.1, with enhanced editing on Desktop, Cloud and Mobile platforms One of its most significant new features is Notebookbar, an improved experimental user interface option that resembles the ribbon interface popular with Microsoft ...

The latest release of the ExTiX Linux distro is a major disappointment.

SoftMaker's FreeOffice 2018 Linux office suite is a high-end product that provides performance and compatibility with Microsoft Office and other office suites.