Physical filesystems reside on block storage devices, such as CDs, floppy disks, compact flash cards, or hard drives. Today open source software has become critical for almost every organization. If you love the rolling Linux distributions (here are some fixed vs rolling release differences), then you don't need to look …

The Linux kernel, supporting both preemptive multitasking and virtual memory, provides every process both a virtualized processor and a virtualized view of memory. This is true even if the device is a modem being used by the PPP daemon to connect a Linux system onto a network. Therefore Linux adds …

But it starts at the top. For Linux, a vendor can create a device driver for a specific hardware device and expect that, within reason, it will operate across most distributions. When Corporations are happy with the used software they donate money to the communities in order to be able …

To do this the IDE subsystem uses the minor device number from the device special identifier, this contains information that allows it to direct the request to the correct partition of the correct disk. Both of these flags are used for demand loaded modules. Unix and Linux are similar in …

There are several web sites that provide drivers and assistance for configuring WinModem based devices. Often, the users who identify the bugs can fix the problem because they have the source code, or they can provide detailed descriptions of their problems so that other developers can fix them. A good …

The UEFI boot manager boots the mini-bootloader, then, in turn, it boots the standard Linux bootloader image. The exact wording of a recipe as it is written by its author is protected under copyright law, but the information itself (i.e., the names of the ingredients, their quantities and the …

By opening the code to widespread examination, more people take part in finding its bugs and security flaws, in testing for broad compatibility across platforms, and in providing new ideas. This means that when the next process that attempts to access this memory gets a page fault, the shared memory …

Why make it easier for them. However, in most cases it is closed source (i.e., the source code is kept secret), and there are often restrictions on the use of the executable version. If all of the semaphore operations would have succeeded and the current process does not need …

Perhaps the most confusing thing about installing Linux for new users is the large number of options that are available to choose from. The early popularity of distributions like Slackware and then Red Hat gave the "common PC user" of the 1990s access to the Linux operating system and, with …

The job of cache coherency is done partially by the hardware and partially by the operating system. One side note is that the popularity of the macOS hardware and operating system as a platform for development that mainly targets Linux may be attributed to the BSD-like macOS operating system. There …

Processes that are started at boot time usually run as root or nobody. As a Linux user today you have all the means of getting to know your system inside out, but it is no longer necessary to have that knowledge in order to make the system comply to your …

Whenever we refer to a file or directory we are using one of these paths. Popular distributions include Debian, Fedora, Mint, and Ubuntu, but there are many others. The CPU can access both the system space memory and the I/O space memory, whereas the controllers themselves can only access …

All of the read/write heads are attached together, they all move across the surfaces of the platters together. A common sector size is 512 bytes and the sector size was set when the disk was formatted, usually when the disk is manufactured. There is yet one other weakness: if …

If you do this, or try to exit again immediately, you are not warned again, and the stopped jobs are terminated. Once a Linux module has been loaded it is as much a part of the kernel as any normal kernel code. This value is called the inode number, often …

Therefore, an alias definition appearing on the same line as another command does not take effect until the next line of input is read. Let's face it; Windows OS is vulnerable to different types of attacks (or hacks). Grep will take the output for that command, which is the name …

Therefore, mastering Linux for configuring and maintaining servers is a must to have skill for any technological entrepreneur who operates end-to-end applications. The scalability and flexibility of Linux enable many of these massive deployments to actually work, while the significantly reduced cost barriers of Linux make them more financially feasible …

Linux is open-source. With all the activity around Unix at Berkeley, a new delivery of Unix software was born: the Berkeley Software Distribution, or BSD. Furthermore, the developer writing Python or Ruby or Scala can still benefit from knowledge of system programming, as an understanding of the soul of the …

It is vital that there is an uninterrupted stream of knowledge, and that information is not held back for personal benefit at the cost of others. Most of the time you will be issuing commands. Anyone can join the Linux community by participating in and contributing to this mailing list …

Now Linux must check that any waiting, suspended, processes may now apply their semaphore operations. Much of enterprise IT's excitement is focused on advancements at the application level (and rightly so), but it's Linux that powers these innovations and helps to drive modern computing forward. If you're interested in writing …

Linux (as well as many other areas of information technology) is particularly well suited for studying at home because (1) no equipment is needed other than an ordinary personal computer and (2) there is a large amount of free or modestly priced study material that is available from bookstores, in …