Articles by Jack M. Germain

Migrating to a different operating system is never easy. Keeping the Windows opened or not chewing on a MacIntosh can be a frustrating and costly experience. Buying new upgraded hardware to keep up with costly new software releases is often an exercise in futility Running a Linux distribution at home or in a small office environment can be a produc...

The Musix Linux distro is a specialty OS with an impressive collection of tools for users with a passion mostly for audio and music production.

The consumer electronics industry has a secret ingredient: the Tizen operating system. It is alive and well and may control a device you now use or the next one you buy That might surprise some early adopters who watch eagerly for the next bleeding-edge electronics device. Many of those who have heard of Tizen are under the impression that it has n...

A new Ubuntu Linux desktop line -- Ubuntu 14.04, known as "Trusty Tahr" -- lacks much in the way of new features or eye-popping special effects. You will find, however, a fresh batch of improvements in what is already a solid distro family of desktop and server implementations....

Open source software continues to gain momentum -- but what is not growing is an open desire among individual software developers to port their commercial Windows wares to Linux Open source support is not a mere in or out decision. Some software makers shape their business models to take advantage of open source support for some products but not ot...

The latest version of the uGet Download Manager rekindled my interest in grabbing files without relying on a Web browser.uGet version 1.10.4. was released last month. Written in C, it uses GTK+3 for its user interface, and it is packed full with improvements. It is very reliable and stable, with 11 years of growth behind it....

CAELinux is a perfect example of the power of open source to tailor the Linux operating system to users' specialized needs.This computer-assisted engineering (CAE) distro clearly is not for the vast majority of Linux users, but it certainly has all the features you would expect in any mature Linux OS -- and then some....

In the war against malware, a new strategy is taking shape. The good guys are preparing to demolish the bad guys' most effective weapons: rogue websites The Secure Domain Foundation will tackle the identification and prevention of Internet cybercrime through a series of steps designed to interfere with the way cybergangs operate online....

If you spend any amount of time creating documents, graphics or organizing data into reports or visual presentations, drop whatever collection of tools you use and put the Calligra Suite to the test.The Calligra Suite is a forked set of office tools for the KDE desktop that branched off the stalled KOffice suite. However, you do not have to run th...

The Kingsoft Office Suite holds the promise of bringing a near perfect clone of Microsoft Office to Linux desktop users. However, Kingsoft's developers still have some work to do on the Linux Alpha release to make it a beta deal....

Has Google been spreading FUD to discourage computer makers from using an Android OS retooled to run on legacy computers? The maintainer of the Android-x86 Project has suggested that the Justice Department should investigate whether Google has been interfering with adoption of the open source code his community is developing....

Energizing Education through Open Source: Using Open Source Software to Enhance LearningBy Christopher WhittumISBN: 978-1-4834-0444-8Pages: 144Price: US$21.95Available at Lulu.com, Amazon and Barnes & Noble.A new book on open source education teaches school leaders and parents why kids need to see coding as more than cool. Energizing Education thr...

Working with the Android OS on a desktop computer environment takes personal computing in a new direction. How many will follow it remains to be seen The release of Android-x86 version 4.4-RC1 (KitKat-x86) by the Android-x86 Project brings the viability of an Android distro as an alternative desktop several steps closer, but it is still a work in p...

The latest Zorin OS Education release brings a special set of academic features that add value to an already impressive Zorin 8.0 Core.Zorin OS 8.0, released last month, is available in the free core and free education versions, as well as in a paid or ultimate version that provides support and a few other features. However, this release number is...

The MakuluLinux 5 release brings a new user experience to the traditional Xfce desktop.MakuluLinux was already a solidly performing distro, but the latest version, released last month, takes Makulu to the next level of usability and maturity....

Etm, an acronym for "Event and Task Manager," is a very useful calendar and planning tool. However, it is a bit cumbersome to learn and far less convenient to use than alternatives.It has an intuitive task-entry format, once you learn its plain text shorthand. Etm stores events, tasks and other user-generated notes and data in text files. You can ...

What if commercial software developers for popular Windows products sold Linux versions to a waiting market of open source users? Think in terms of paying a subscription fee to use a Linux version of Adobe's Photoshop image manipulation software, for starters Is porting commercial products like Photoshop as a licensed -- that is, paid -- product fo...

The Linux desktop offers distributions for many diverse interests and specialties. Distro Astro is for astronomy enthusiasts.The latest version, Distro Astro 2.0, is dubbed "Pallas." It was released Nov. 20, 2013, at the South East Asian Young Astronomers Collaboration conference in Bandung, Indonesia. It is a major upgrade focusing on refinements...

Linux on the desktop may have missed its adoption timeline, but Linux in the cloud is a win-win proposition for the post-PC movement Linux shows signs of becoming the go-to cloud platform. Microsoft's Azure may be the only real threat to Linux's cloud dominance, as all other major cloud software platforms are based on Linux and open-source software...

Lightworks is a professional-grade nonlinear video editor now available for Linux. It is a cross-platform editor from a well-known player in the media market, so this first-time Linux release could be a big thing.Lightworks version 11.5 for Linux was released late last month. It took the company nearly three years to get this product beyond beta, ...