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 …

It also helps to know how to access the Internet and be able to do basic web searches with a search engine such as Yahoo or Google. Of course, we knew that all along. This means that subsequent INET socket calls can easily retrieve the sock data structure. For example …

Functions are defined by using the function keyword and followed by function body enclosed by curly brackets. The data is read by a head, which can detect whether a particular minute particle is magnetized. FLOSS OSes tend to include many applications that are usually sold separately in proprietary systems (including …

Of course, most system calls have only a couple of parameters. So now you are probably starting to see that we can refer to a location in a variety of different ways. The saved uid stores the original effective uid; its value is used in deciding what effective uid values …

Figure 11.3 shows both mechanisms. For example, %ce refers to a stopped ce job. The partitions of a hard disk are described by a partition table; each entry describing where the partition starts and ends in terms of heads, sectors and cylinder numbers. If something is in the public …

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 …

For those companies, Linux supports most UNIX commands and standards, which makes transitioning to Linux very easy because the company likely would not need to pur- chase additional software or retrain staff. Also, the kernel compilation process is not as verbose in the 2.6 kernel series. A question that …

The Watergate scandal leaked to the press through one of US President Nixon's most trusted colleagues. Device drivers have to be careful when using DMA. By the time I was done, I had actually forgotten how to use my old piece of proprietary garbageware. Linux is open-source.

How much do …