Unix News

NetBSD is an extremely flexible operating system that is designed to be portable across various architectures. This feature makes it attractive for embedded developers. In this article, I will demonstrate a process for creating a very small kernel that can boot, either to a shell prompt or to a login screen, more ...

Signals are mechanisms for communicating with and manipulating processes in Linux. The topic of signals is a large one; here we discuss some of the most important signals and techniques that are used for controlling processes. A signal is a special message sent to a process. Signals are asynchronous; when a process receives a signal, it processes the signal immediately, without finishing the current function or even the current line of code.

The main goal of this handbook is to serve as a single access point to all kernel-related documentation. It contains the information about the Debian packaging of Linux kernel for the Etch release of Debian (version 4.0). The latest released version is always available from http://kernel-handbook.alioth.debian.org . The work on a handbook version for Lenny (next Debian release) is currently in progress.

For years I've been using various Linux distributions for my home-based server (Web, FTP, NTP (time), DNS (name), SMB and NFS (file)). I didn't use Solaris because (1) the license ued to cost $595 for commercial use and (2) it was missing many features found in Linux (mainly modern GNU/open source software). Now that OpenSolaris is available, I've decided to convert. more ...

Inotify is a Linux® feature that monitors file system operations, such as read, write, and create. Inotify is reactive, surprisingly simple to use, and far more efficient than, say, busy polling from a cron job. Learn how to integrate inotify into your own applications, and discover a set of command-line tools you can use to further automate system administration.

Many people use nothing but GUI tools for manipulating files, launching programs, and so on. This approach certainly has its merits—GUI tools tend to be easy to learn, and they fit the needs of some tasks, such as graphics programs, very well. There is an older method of interacting with computers, though, which still has advantages: text-based shells. They are programs that accept typed commands and respond to these commands by launching programs or performing actions. more ...

Cloud computing and storage convert physical resources (like processors and storage) into scalable and shareable resources over the Internet (computing and storage "as a service"). Although not a new concept, virtualization makes this much more scalable and efficient through the sharing of physical systems through server virtualization. Cloud computing gives users access to massive computing and storage resources without their having to know where those resources are or how they're configured. As you might expect, Linux® plays a huge role. Discover cloud computing , and learn why there's a penguin behind that silver lining.