Open-source GNU/Linux operating systems, for all their complications and confusing nomenclature, span a universe of alternatives to Windows and macOS worth exploring. Our team tests, rates, and ...

Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie at a PDP-11. Peter Hamer [CC BY-SA 2.0] Last week the computing world celebrated an important anniversary: the UNIX operating system turned 50 years old. What was ...

Have you heard of Linux? It’s a version of Unix developed by a Finn, Linus Torvalds. But what is Unix? It’s a computer operating system developed by Bell Labs in the 1960s. What was Bell Labs? It was ...

An operating system's kernel manages resources, handles system calls, governs hardware access, and controls processes. The ...

Takeaway: Unix’s rock-solid reliability means that its relevant now more than ever – and Linux puts Unix’s power within reach. Unix has been around for a very long time. We remember the rampant ...

Although many people claim that Linux is well on its way to replacing Unix, the reality is that Linux is Unix: a particular stream within a much wider community whose traditions and ideas both ...

Theo de Raadt is a pioneer of the open source software movement and a huge proponent of free software. But he is no fan of the open source Linux operating system. "It's terrible," De Raadt says.

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 ...

When considering the issue of best practice as it applies to the administration of Unix servers, there are a number of questions you might want to ask yourself. They begin with “What is best practice?