Happy Birthday to the IBM PC
The IBM PC turned 43 on the 12th of August and I, for one, have fond and interesting memories of its birth. I’m a bit behind the curve on writing this article, but better late than never. You can read the public history and the original specifications on Wikipedia, but this is my story — at least part of it.
System76’s Cosmic Desktop: A New Era in Linux UX
Last week, System76 unveiled COSMIC, a groundbreaking desktop for Linux computers. This isn't an iteration of Gnome, Cinnamon, XFCE, or KDE. It's a paradigm shift...
The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins, Tenet 04 — Use the Linux FHS
The Linux Filesystem Hierarchical Standard (FHS) defines the structure of the Linux directory tree. It names a set of standard directories and designates their purposes.
Mastering the rm command
The rm command in Linux is a powerful tool for deleting files and directories. While it may seem simple, mastering this command requires understanding its...
Results of the Great Both.org Challenge
Since no one entered out little challenge, we have no new results to share. I was hoping to see if the results from this time...
Randomness, zero and more
Photo by Breakingpic from Pexels Randomness is an important tool in any computing environment. It's critical to creating public/private keypairs (PPKP) for use with tools like SSH,...
The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins, Tenet 03 — Everything is a File
Author's note: This article is excerpted in part from chapter 5 of my book, The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins, with some changes. This is one...
Top Five reasons I use Konsole terminal emulator
The most important tool for all Linux SysAdmins is the terminal emulator we choose. There are many from which to choose and all have features...
Gaming drives computing
We all play games on our computers. Whether a simple game of solitaire, chess, a first person shooter, adventure, action, arcade, military tactics, various types...
Getting started with Linux
I recently became a member of several Linux groups on Facebook because I was interested to see what they were all about. Many of the...
GUI disk usage analyzers in Linux
For people who prefer visual representations, these GUI-based tools help you understand how your storage capacity is used.
Sometimes the visual representation of disk utilization is easier or newer users may not be as familiar with the various Linux commands that display storage information. I am a person who comprehends visual representations more easily than the printout on the command line.
How to remove existing traditional swap partitions
Swap space is a common and important aspect of computing today regardless of operating system. Linux uses swap space to substitute for RAM when it becomes too full to effectively support additional programs or data. It is a way to temporarily enable the system to keep running albeit at the cost of reduced performance. However the use of zram for swap space has provided an interesting, if counter-intuitive, method for providing a reasonable amount of swap space while significantly improving swap performance.
Getting started on the command line
As a SysAdmin, the Linux command line is typically my happy place. The command line interface, the CLI, is the closest I can get to the raw power of my computers. It gives me access to tools that make my work easy, fast, and even fun. I use the command line so much that I sometimes forget how much power I have to manage my computers.
I also forget that it took me a long time to really understand the terminology that applies to the various tools that I use to access that command line. This article is about those tools and the sometimes confusing terminology necessary to function on the CLI.
The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins, Tenet 02 — Transforming Data Streams
Author's note: This article is excerpted in part from chapter 4 of my book, The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins, with some changes. My article about...
Mastering the Linux cp Command: A Comprehensive Guide
When I began to use Linux over twenty-five years ago I was not as comfortable on the command line as I am now. I had...
How to use the basename command
The basename command is a GNU core utility for UNIX and UNIX-like systems, and is designed to remove the file suffix and leading directories from a filename. It’s a reasonable alternative to at least some uses of the cut command. You’re not likely to use it alone, but it’s an interesting tool to have available to you when constructing a complex command.
