For those unwilling to sacrifice performance for security, there are hardware-based strategies for faster encryption, says Jason Brooks

The GNOME 3.0 and Ubuntu Unity interfaces improve Linux desktops, but need some getting used to

The Turnkey Linux service runs on Amazon Web Services and is good for test driving cloud apps

OpenSUSE 11.4 is a modest release, marked by a raft of newly updated open-source applications and components

Firefox's latest version matches Google's Chrome on many fronts but lacks Group Policy-based management support

This latest release from the Debian project will play well in server deployments that draw on open-source components

The beta release of the Windows client for Canonical's Ubuntu One service is off to a solid start, but work remains if it's to overtake Dropbox

The latest Linux-based OS from Red Hat offers a strong foundation for hosting virtual workloads, complete with distinctive capabilities such as security features rooted in SE Linux

Zendesk is a hosted customer help desk service that is easy to deploy while remaining quite amenable to customisation

We hit a few snags with SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLES) 11 and its Service Pack 1, especially involving KVM and Hyper-V, but Novell is doing a good job of maintaining SLES as an enterprise operating system