Skip to the content
Both.org
News, Opinion, Tutorials, and Community for Linux Users and SysAdmins
  • About Us
  • Computers 101
    • Hardware 101
    • Operating Systems 101
  • End of 10 Events
    • Wake Forest, NC, — 2025-09-20
  • Linux
    • Why I use Linux
    • The real reason we use Linux
  • My Linux Books
    • systemd for Linux SysAdmins
    • Using and Administering Linux – Zero to SysAdmin: 2nd Edition
    • The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins
    • Linux for Small Business Owners
    • Errata
      • Errata for The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins
      • Errata for Using and Administering Linux — 1st Edition
      • Errata for Using and Administering Linux — 2nd Edition
  • Open Source Resources
    • What is Open Source?
    • What is Linux?
    • What is Open Source Software?
    • The Open Source Way
  • Write for us
    • Submission and Style guide
    • Advertising statement
  • Downloads
1

From ‘Obsolete’ to Opportunity: How Five Old PCs Found New Purpose

March 20, 2026March 19, 2026
2

Fedora 44 Coming Soon

March 18, 2026
3

VirtualBox Problem Solved

March 16, 2026March 17, 2026
4

Is there a better Pi Day than March 14?

March 14, 2026March 14, 2026
5

Let’s measure pi with a Raspberry Pi

March 13, 2026October 17, 2025
6

Why I Really Like Linux

March 12, 2026March 13, 2026
7

California’s age verification law is bad for open source

March 10, 2026March 9, 2026
8

Announcing the 3rd Edition of “Using and Administering Linux”

March 7, 2026March 7, 2026
9

Fresh KDE Innovation Meets Ubuntu Stability

March 5, 2026March 4, 2026
  • Home
  • Jim Hall
  • Page 7

jhall

Jim Hall is an open source software developer and advocate. His first contribution to open source was in 1993 with a patch to GNU Emacs, but he is probably best known for his work on FreeDOS, the open source version of the DOS operating system, and for his work on usability in open source software. In addition to writing open source software, Jim also writes about open source software, including Both.org and All Things Open, and about technical writing at Technically We Write.
Bash Linux

Print double-sided documents with this Bash script

Use Bash to print 2-sided documents on a printer that can only print on one side.

Jim Hall
November 20, 2024November 24, 2024
Read More
Open Source

How to write your first article with Both.org

Join the community by writing an article for Both.org.

Jim Hall
November 1, 2024August 11, 2024
Read More
FreeDOS Fun Programming

Print a spooky greeting in ASCII art

Generate colorful ASCII art from a C program using FreeDOS.

Jim Hall
October 31, 2024October 13, 2024
Read More
FreeDOS Linux Programming

Portable programming practices

Sometimes it’s easier to define your API to hide the platform-specific code

Jim Hall
October 26, 2024October 19, 2024
Read More
FreeDOS Linux Programming

Writing portable C programs

Jim shares this follow-up to an earlier article about programming across platforms.

Jim Hall
October 25, 2024October 19, 2024
Read More
Community Open Source

Celebrating technical writing with open source software

Celebrate the National Day on Writing by sharing your first article about open source software.

Jim Hall
October 20, 2024October 17, 2024
Read More
Fun Linux

Calculate letter frequency in gawk

Write a gawk script to determine the most (and least) common letters in a set of words.

Jim Hall
October 16, 2024October 13, 2024
Read More
FreeDOS Linux Programming

Programming across platforms

Using these C compiler preprocessor directives to detect the operating system can make it easier to support multiple platforms at once.

Jim Hall
October 15, 2024October 13, 2024
Read More
Open Source

4 ways to write your first article

Write an article about your open source experience.

Jim Hall
October 1, 2024August 11, 2024
Read More
Code Fun Programming

Write a guessing game in ncurses

Use the flexibility of ncurses to create a guess-the-number game on Linux.

Jim Hall
September 18, 2024September 10, 2024
Read More
Linux Programming

Terminal size and ncurses

When programs like vi first came along, terminals had a predefined size: usually 80 columns and 24 lines (actually 25 lines, but the last line...

Jim Hall
September 16, 2024September 7, 2024
Read More
Command Line Linux

Searching text files from the command line

The find command is a powerful and flexible tool to locate files under a path.

Jim Hall
September 15, 2024September 10, 2024
Read More
Fun Linux Programming

Random numbers from the Linux kernel

Let the kernel generate random numbers for you using ‘getrandom.’

Jim Hall
September 14, 2024September 5, 2024
Read More
Linux Programming

A gentle introduction to ncurses

You can create your own programs that use a text user interface to control the screen.

Jim Hall
September 11, 2024September 7, 2024
Read More
Fun Programming

Learn C by writing a number guessing game

The “Guess the number” game is a fun way to learn a new programming language.

Jim Hall
September 7, 2024September 5, 2024
Read More
FreeDOS Text Editors

Editing files with FreeDOS Edlin

Edlin is a classic editor from the early DOS days, but it’s still a fun and useful editor.

Jim Hall
September 5, 2024September 4, 2024
Read More

Posts pagination

Previous 1 … 6 7 8 … 10 Next

Random Quote

Unix was not designed to stop its users from doing stupid things, as that would also stop them from doing clever things.

— Doug Gwyn

Why I’ve Never Used Windows

On February 12 I gave a presentation at the Triangle Linux Users Group (TriLUG) about why I use Linux and why I’ve never used Windows.

Here’s the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/live/uCK_haOXPFM 

David Both ATO Interview

Last October at All Things Open (ATO) I was interviewed by Jason Hibbits of We Love Open Source. It’s posted in the article “Why today’s AI isn’t intelligent (yet)“.

“systemd for SysAdmins” Now Available

May 13,2025

My latest book — a #1 New Release on Amazon — “systemd for Linux  SysAdmins” is now available from my publisher, Apress, and on Amazon.

Technically We Write — Our Partner Site

Our partner site, Technically We Write, has published a number of articles from several contributors to Both.org. Check them out.

Technically We Write is a community of technical writers, technical editors, copyeditors, web content writers, and all other roles in technical communication.

Subscribe to Both.org

To comment on articles, you must have an account.

Send your desired user ID, first and last name, and an email address for login (this must be the same email address used to register) to subscribe@both.org with “Subscribe” as the subject line.

You’ll receive a confirmation of your subscription with your initial password as soon as we are able to process it.

Administration

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
  • About Us
  • Computers 101
    • Hardware 101
    • Operating Systems 101
  • End of 10 Events
    • Wake Forest, NC, — 2025-09-20
  • Linux
    • Why I use Linux
    • The real reason we use Linux
  • My Linux Books
    • systemd for Linux SysAdmins
    • Using and Administering Linux – Zero to SysAdmin: 2nd Edition
    • The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins
    • Linux for Small Business Owners
    • Errata
      • Errata for The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins
      • Errata for Using and Administering Linux — 1st Edition
      • Errata for Using and Administering Linux — 2nd Edition
  • Open Source Resources
    • What is Open Source?
    • What is Linux?
    • What is Open Source Software?
    • The Open Source Way
  • Write for us
    • Submission and Style guide
    • Advertising statement
  • Downloads

License and AI Statements

Both.org aims to publish everything under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license. Some items may be published under a different license. You are responsible to verify permissions before reusing content from this website.

The opinions expressed are those of the individual authors, not Both.org.

You may not use this content to train AI.

 

Advertising Statement

Advertising Statement

To the Top ↑ Up ↑