Articles by Jack M. Germain

TheLinux Mint upgrade to version 17.3 Rosa is one upgrade regular users do not want to skip....

GeckoLinux is a custom spin of the openSuse project. It offers an impressive variety of options and easier operation than typical Suse-based Linux distros provide GeckoLinux is a newcomer. I mean very new. Its first release was last week. You shouldn't view this distro as a wailing infant, however. It's based on openSuse Leap 42.1 and was leapfrogg...

BunsenLabs Linux does a bang-up job of picking up where CrunchBang Linux left off....

TheNetrunner Rolling 2015.11 version is a disappointing release. It seems sluggish and unimpressive right from the start Linux Picks and Pans last reviewed Netrunner in 2013 andgave it five stars. This was the standard Netrunner edition built upon Kubuntu, Ubuntu's KDE desktop version.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation on Tuesday filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, alleging that Google has used personal student data mined from its school Chromebook distribution, and requesting an investigation and an injunction against the practice The EFF also on Tuesday launched its Spying on Students Campaign, an effort to ed...

Open source is driving an ever-expanding market. The notion of community-driven development is a growing disruption to proprietary software controlled by commercial vendors, and the free open-source software concept has become a major disruption in industry and technology Open source is so pervasive that people tend to focus on big news items while...

Vinux 5.0 is a striking example of the flexibility and usability of the Linux OS....

Microsoft this week announced at its Connect conference in New York City an expansion of its developer tools with a focus on Linux, Android, and open source The move is an effort to help close the gap between Microsoft's developer platforms and the open-source world....

Ubuntu Studio 15.10 is a one-stop Linux OS shop for most creative people. It bundles a nearly full range of multimedia content-creation applications for workflows involving audio, graphics, video, photography and publishing....

The Linux Foundation on Thursday announced that it's forming theOpenHPC Collaborative Project to push the software supply to support high-powered computing The project will provide a new open source framework to meet HPC's unique application demands and parallel runtime requirements, the organization said....

The combination of custom-made hardware paired with a tweaked Linux OS makes the Librem laptop lineup a unique offering with several innovative security features not offered in any other computer....

Microsoft and Red Hat on Wednesday announced a deal that bridges their cloud technologies, which have been separated by the competing Windows and Linux platforms The partnership lets customers migrate their data to either Microsoft Azure or Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It also integrates features in both cloud systems so customers can use them interch...

GALPon MiniNo is one of the strangest and most distinctive Linux distros to grace the Linux Picks and Pans computer screens. Those two traits make it an almost ideal option for anyone looking for a reliable operating system for youngsters and educational facilities that cater to early education students....

BackBox Linux 4.4 is a great Linux distro for IT and other techies who want to do their own penetration tests and security assessments....

TheKaOS Linux distro is a very efficient Linux distribution built around a refined KDE desktop environment that just keeps getting better....

MuseScore is a complete tool to help musicians and songwriters write musical scores, play them back and print the sheet music.It is available in a variety of Linux distro packages and comes in versions for Windows and OS X 10.7 or higher. It is fully open source software licensed under GNU GPL....

System 76 on Tuesday announced its latest desktop release, Wild Dog Pro, with a range of high-end customizable configurations to enhance video editing and media creation, software engineering, CAD, and high-end performance for today's most demanding games It comes preinstalled with Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf), and the default desktop environment i...

Liquid Lemur Linux offers a new twist on the usual Linux desktop environment experience.Developer Edward Snyder recently released the second alpha version of Liquid Lemur Linux 2.0. It offers a hybrid desktop experience that combines the Window Maker window manager with elements of the Xfce desktop.

TheLinux Foundation on Wednesday announced a strategic partnership withON.Lab and itsONOS project community to develop open source network services They will build infrastructure for software-defined networking and network function virtualization technology. The foundation will provide its global reach, experience and infrastructure to seed ONOS' g...

Robolinux Mate Raptor v8.1 is a stunningly gorgeous and well-tuned operating system that soars with unmatched functionality.This release of the Robolinux distro line runs the newest iteration of the Gnome 2 fork desktop Mate. It is fast and slick....