Jason Brooks

About

As Editor in Chief of eWEEK Labs, Jason Brooks manages the Labs team and is responsible for eWEEK's print edition. Brooks joined eWEEK in 1999, and has covered wireless networking, office productivity suites, mobile devices, Windows, virtualization, and desktops and notebooks. Jason's coverage is currently focused on Linux and Unix operating systems, open-source software and licensing, cloud computing and Software as a Service.

Installing Vista RTM on VMware

During our recent Vista tests, we came across a bug in the Vista installer that prevented us from installing the OS onto VMware using an iso image of Vista. The OS booted normally for us from an iso image, but then complained about not having a driver for the virtual DVD/CD drive from which we’d […]

Our View: Oracle Linux Makes Sense

The rumor that Oracle is planning to launch its own Linux distribution has surfaced again, this time in the form of analyst speculation that appeared to prompt a dip in Red Hats share price. Considering that Oracles OpenWorld show was Oct. 22-26, a move by Larry Ellison and Co. to confirm this tough-to-sink rumor already […]

Fedora Core 6: Innovations Continue

In its first five releases, Red Hats Fedora Core has represented the Linux technology vanguard. And so it is with Fedora Core 6. During tests, Fedora Core 6 impressed eWEEK Labs with the progress it has made toward making Security-Enhanced Linux—and the dramatically improved security protections that SELinux helps afford—more palatable. We also liked the […]

Clean Install Is the Way to Go with Vista

IT managers have many questions when it comes to Microsoft Vista, whose final release is looming. One of the biggest: Clean install or upgrade? To gauge the impact of a Vista migration on existing applications, eWEEK Labs upgraded a Windows XP system to Vista Build 5568. We tested using a Lenovo ThinkPad T41 with 1.5GB […]

Sun Gilds Solaris Lily

When eWEEK Labs first reviewed Sun Microsystems Solaris 10 early last year, we were impressed by the new facilities the operating system offered for better serving up applications and making the most of the SPARC and x86 hardware on which it runs. With this summers Solaris 10 update, labeled 6/06, Sun has significantly improved on […]

All Suns Containers, Great and Small

Last week, I attended the launch of Suns “Project Blackbox,” an intriguing new product offering that squeezes a couple of hundred rack-mounted servers—along with their requisite cooling systems and cabling—into the sort of container you see loaded on trucks or stacked on ships. The quick tour I took through the Project Blackbox container set up […]

OpenSolaris Options Show Promise

Beginning with Solaris 10, Sun Microsystems rearranged the development and licensing processes surrounding its flagship operating system to better tap the sort of community participation that has helped lift Linux fairly quickly to prominence. The result was OpenSolaris. eWEEK Labs recently scoped out the current OpenSolaris environment, spinning up three LiveCD-based OpenSolaris x86 distributions: NexentaOS […]

Microsoft Takes One Step Forward and One Step Back

Microsoft recently announced its intention to make life easier for its Windows Server customers whore building virtualization into their infrastructures, by changing its licensing to permit an unlimited number of virtualized Windows Server instances to run on a single copy of Windows Server 2003 Data Center Edition. Earlier this year, Microsoft announced a similar change […]

Light at the End of the Vista Tunnel

Its been a long and winding road, but the Microsoft Windows Vista release thats been floating vaguely in the near future (for years now) finally appears to be close at hand. First, though, comes what eWeek Labs hopes to be the last in an extended line of next-generation Windows client test builds: 5744, also known […]

Mandriva Shoots but Doesnt Score

With its Corporate Server 4, Mandriva is challenging the Linux data center operating systems from Red Hat and Novell by offering broader support for virtualization technologies. Its a solid-sounding plan, but eWeek Labs tests of CS 4 show that its longer on ambition than execution. Mandrivas CS 4 is unique in its support for three […]