Articles by Jack M. Germain

A design flaw in all Intel chips produced in the last decade is responsible for a vulnerability that puts Linux, Windows and macOS-powered computers at risk, according to multiple press reports The flaw reportedly is in the kernel that controls the chip performance, allowing commonly used programs to access the contents and layout of a computer's p...

SoftMaker Office could be a first-class professional-strength replacement for Microsoft Office on the Linux desktop....

Newcomer ArchMerge Linux offers a big change for the better to those switching from the Debian Linux lineage to the Arch Linux infrastructure....

CoreOS on Tuesday announced the release of Tectonic 1.8, a Kubernetes container management platform. Tectonic enables enterprises to deploy key automation infrastructure components that function like managed cloud services without cloud vendor lock-in The CoreOS Open Cloud Services Catalog offers an alternative to cloud vendors' proprietary service...

MX Linux-17 Beta 1, released last week, is a desktop-oriented Linux distribution based on Debian's "stable" branch. It is a cooperative venture between the antiX and former MEPIS Linux communities -- hence its breakaway name....

A Google code security researcher's recent discovery of 14 flaws in Linux kernel USB drivers led to last-minute fixes in the Linux 4.14 release candidate code set for distribution on Sunday The flaws, which Google researcher Andrey Konovalov disclosed earlier this week, affect the Linux kernel before version 4.13.8....

The latest developmental beta release of GeckoLinux brings this custom spinoff distro of openSuse to new levels of performance and convenience....

Microsoft's Sonar, released last week under an open source license, could help developers build more effective and secure websites Sonar, a linting tool and site scanner, is the next evolution of the static scan tool, according to Microsoft....

Amazon Web Services on Tuesday announced the general availability of Amazon Aurora with PostgreSQL compatibility. The service is now fully compatible with both MySQL and PostgreSQL, the company said....

Anarchy Linux, the distro formerly known as "Arch-Anywhere Linux" has changed my tune about the terrors of Arch-based Linux as a suitable operating system. In general, however, Arch-anything presents a challenge that may not be worth the effort for typical desktop needs....

Many software developers and enterprise users have been lax or oblivious to the need to properly manage open source software, suggest survey results Flexera released Tuesday Companies are not mindful of open source components and fail to monitor security implications, according to the report, which highlights the consequences of failure to establis...

Amazon Web Services and Microsoft on Thursday announced the availability of Gluon, an open source deep learning library for building artificial intelligence neural networks Gluon will make it easier for researchers to define machine learning models using a collection of prebuilt, optimized neural network components. The interface will enable softwa...

The Cloud Foundry Foundation on Wednesday launched Cloud Foundry Container Runtime, or CFCR, as the default deployment and management platform for containers using Kubernetes and BOSH The foundation announced Container Runtime, a project supported by The Linux Foundation, at its annual European user conference....

Ubuntu 17.10, otherwise known as "Artful Aardvark," is a paradigm shift for Canonical. The company is set to release the official version of the much anticipated Ubuntu 17.10 desktop, server and cloud distro on Oct. 19 -- it released the final beta version late last month.

Hologram on Thursday launched Nova, the first open source modem for cellular connectivity Nova is a USB cellular modem purpose-built for Internet of Things development. Its Hologram software tools are compatible with most single board computers, such as Raspberry Pi.

RoboCyberWall on Tuesday launched its proprietary precision firewall solution bearing the same name. RoboCyberWall is designed to protect HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) ports on Linux-based Apache2 and NGINX Web servers The patent-pending firewall blocks all known exploits and zero-day attacks on Apache2 and NGINX Web servers, according to the developer. I...

If you want to stretch your Linux desktop acumen from the Debian Linux lineage to Arch Linux, ArchLabs might be a better choice than Parabola....

Microsoft this week became a premium sponsor of the Open Source Initiative, adding more financial heft to its growing commitment to the open source software movement The company's new financial support will not translate into any special influence in the organization's decision making, noted OSI General Manager Patrick Masson....

Linux is now the dominant operating system on Amazon's AWS cloud service and is growing rapidly on Microsoft's Azure platform this year, according to a report on public cloud adoption trendsSumo Logic released on Tuesday The company's second annual State of Modern Apps report reveals usage trends on AWS, Azure and Google clouds, and how they impac...

San Francisco in January could become the first U.S. city to adopt open source software to run its voting machines City officials last month authorized consulting group Slalom to prepare a report on the benefits and challenges involved in using an open source voting machine platform. The city voted to pay Slalom US$150,000 for its research....