Writing
Articles
137 articles, newest first.
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Beginner’s Guide to Selecting a Linux Desktop Distribution
Choosing a first Linux distribution feels like it matters enormously and mostly doesn't. The four questions that actually decide it, the handful of distributions worth starting with in mid-2024, and how to try one this…
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The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Reflections on its Relevance in 2024
Eric Raymond's 1997 essay argued that open, chaotic development beats careful central planning, and that "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." This spring a backdoor sat in plain sight in xz for weeks. What the…
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The Impact of William Gibson’s “Neuromancer” on Computer Science and the Internet
Neuromancer turned forty this month. It was written on a manual typewriter by a man who'd barely used a computer, and it gave the internet its vocabulary and its mood. What it got right, what it got hilariously wrong…
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The Importance of “The Hacker’s Manifesto” and Its Impact on Early Internet Culture
A teenager wrote it in a few hundred words just after his arrest, and Phrack published it in January 1986. "The Conscience of a Hacker" gave a scattered subculture an identity. Why it landed, what it got right about…
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You Are a Linux User Even If You Don’t Know It
"I've never used Linux" is one of the most common things people say and one of the least likely to be true. A tour of where the Linux kernel is quietly running in an ordinary day, from your phone and TV to your car, the…
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What is Object Caching?
Object caching keeps the answers to expensive questions in memory so your database doesn't have to answer them again. How it works, the three ways it goes wrong, Redis versus Memcached, and why this spring's Redis…
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The 4th of July and the Open Source Movement
Benjamin Franklin refused to patent his inventions and Thomas Jefferson wrote the best description of open source two centuries early. A short Independence Day piece on what the founders thought about ideas, and what…
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Understanding Zero Trust: What It Is and Why It Matters
Zero trust isn't a product, whatever the booth at the conference says. It's the idea that being on the network shouldn't get you anything. Where it came from, why this year's string of VPN breaches makes the case, and…
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Open Source: Free as in Freedom
Open source was never about the price. It's a short list of rights, and this year a growing number of companies want the reputation without granting them. What the freedoms actually are, how free software and open…
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The History of Tux!
Linux's mascot lost every logo contest it entered, was drawn in a pre-1.0 release of the GIMP, and owes its existence to a zoo in Canberra and a claymation studio in Bristol. The real story of the penguin, and why a…
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Comparing top, htop, and glances: Usage and Benefits
Three tools for the same question, "what is this box doing?", and the keys and numbers that actually answer it. How to read load average, memory and iowait without fooling yourself, plus the one tool on the list that…
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Why Choose a Debian Server for MS SQL Over Windows
SQL Server has run on Linux since 2017, and there are good reasons to run it there. There's also a catch most articles skip. Debian isn't on Microsoft's supported list, and the Windows license isn't where the money…