Maybe you're married to Microsoft Exchange, but you secretly pine for open-source e-mail tools like SpamAssassin or fetchmail. Or maybe you're using Unix-based applications for some network services, ...

One of the questions that Unix users are sometimes reluctant to ask is how all the directory names — like /etc, /var and /usr/local — came about in the first place. Why did we adopt the particular ...

The Unix operating system is one of computing's most significant technologies, providing the framework that the familiar Linux and Mac OS X operating systems were developed on. Unix can be a viable ...

When transferring text files between Linux/Unix and Windows systems, you may encounter issues with line breaks and file formatting. This is because Windows uses both a line feed (LF) and a carriage ...

Windows users who dive into *nix without first researching the operating system are in for quite a shock. The complete lack of a C:\ drive can send Windows switchers into a tailspin. Thankfully, IBM ...

One particular frustration with the UNIX shell is the inability to easily schedule multiple, concurrent tasks that fully utilize CPU cores presented on modern systems. The example of focus in this ...

One of the files that the average Unix sysadmin rarely looks at, almost never changes and yet depends on every time he or she reboots a system is the /etc/inittab file. This modest little file ...

GUIs are great—we wouldn’t want to live without them. But if you’re a Mac or Linux user and you want to get the most out of your operating system (and your keystrokes), you owe it to yourself to get ...

We have looked at the fuser command before to display information about what users or processes are keeping file systems busy. This command can save you a lot of time tracking when you need to quickly ...

Today, I test-drove an in-development operating system project that seems almost disturbingly tailored to me specifically: SerenityOS. I cannot possibly introduce SerenityOS more accurately than its ...