Jason Brooks

Novell’s OpenSUSE 11.2, the latest release in a long and popular line of Linux-based operating systems, hit Internet mirrors everywhere this week, packed with the latest and greatest of what the open-source software world has to offer. The distribution, which is targeted primarily at desktop users, ships with the latest versions of the Firefox Web […]

Twenty-five years ago, this publication began chronicling the ecosystem that had sprung up around IBM’s PC. It was a platform that proved remarkably fertile, owing not only to the “business-approved” blessing that came with the IBM brand but also to the platform’s open architecture. PC Week’s birth year-1984-was a busy one for technology, one that […]

LABS GALLERY: Fedora 12 Beta Boasts Security, Management and Virtualization Updates by Jason Brooks Sandboxing Abobe Reader I used Fedora 12’s sandbox-X feature to run Adobe’s oft-attacked Reader in an environment isolated from the rest of my system. Sandboxing Firefox With Firefox sandboxed, I could browse to sites of questionable virtue knowing that the contents […]

Red Hat’s leading-edge Linux-based operating system, Fedora, hit a beta milestone this week on the way to its Version 12 release. As with Ubuntu Linux, which recently underwent a beta release of its own, Fedora 12 will be packed with the latest and greatest versions of popular open-source applications, such as the OpenOffice.org productivity suite, […]

LABS GALLERY: Ubuntu Linux 9.10 Beta Provides Security, Web Integration Enhancements by Jason Brooks Home Encryption Ubuntu 9.10 will be the first Ubuntu Linux release to offer a file-level disk encryption option right from the system’s default, LiveCD-based installer. This feature encrypts user home directories, along with the system swap partition. Alternate Installer Encryption In […]

The Ubuntu project recently set loose a beta version of its next Linux-based operating system release, known as Ubuntu 9.10 or, more fancifully, as the Karmic Koala. I’ve been testing this in-development Ubuntu version for several weeks now, but this beta milestone seems like a good time to single out a handful of the new […]

It’s been a long, hot summer in the open-source world, particularly in the regions where open source and Microsoft butt up against each other, causing friction between and within the two camps as their members battle over whether and how they should interact. Microsoft has been all over the map with regard to open source, […]

LABS GALLERY: Talend Open Studio Eases ETL Chores A Familiar Interface Since Talend Open Studio is based on Eclipse, I found its interface familiar from the first time I fired it up. File Metadata With the product’s New Delimited File wizard, I made short work of mydata-source-tweaking chores. Job Design Canvas I dragged my data […]