Writing
Tagged “linux”
47 articles
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Open Source Alternatives to Crowdstrike: Ensuring Resilience Against Global Outages
After today's outage, a lot of people are asking whether open source security tools could replace CrowdStrike. Some can do parts of the job, and some do them very well. None of them is a drop-in replacement, and open…
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OPINION: Do We Really Need Another Linux Distribution?
There are hundreds of Linux distributions, and someone is starting another one right now. Do we need it? Probably not. Should they do it anyway? Probably yes. What all that choice really costs, what it's given us, and…
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The Broad Expertise of Linux Engineers
Linux engineering roles tend to span more layers than the equivalent Windows roles. That isn't because Linux people are smarter. It's because of where Linux runs and how open systems are put together. Why the job is so…
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Strangest Linux and Unix Commands and Errors
A steam train for people who mistype ls, a calendar missing eleven days, a package manager that moos, and a kernel that reports your printer is on fire. The strange corners of Linux and Unix, and the baffling error…
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A Day in the Life of a Linux Systems Engineer
Alex is made up. The day isn't. A realistic day in the life of a Linux systems engineer, from the 6 a.m. page to the evening pull request, and what each part of it says about the job that the job description leaves out.
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The History of Open Source
Software started out free because nobody thought to sell it. Then it became property, then a movement fought to make it free again, and then the movement won so thoroughly that the companies it fought now run on it. A…
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Why Being Platform Agnostic is Crucial for Linux Systems Engineers
The most useful Linux engineers can also find their way around Active Directory, a Mac, a Cisco switch and a mainframe console. Why knowing the other platforms makes you better at Linux, which ones matter most in 2024…
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Understanding Foobar, Foo, Bar, Baz, Qux, and Quux in Programming and Linux
Every programmer learns foo and bar before they learn what they mean. Where the words came from (a 1930s comic strip, Second World War slang and an MIT model railroad club), what comes after quux, what other countries…
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Enterprise Linux Engineer Essentials
The skills that separate a Linux engineer an enterprise trusts with production from someone who has memorized commands. The fundamentals that never go out of date, the modern stack on top of them, and the habits nobody…
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OPINION: Why I Prefer Debian
Debian is my default for almost everything. Not because it's exciting, but because it's boring in all the right ways, and because nobody can sell it. The reasons, the trade-offs I accept, and where I'd pick something…
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Mitigating Ransomware Attacks on Linux
Ransomware gangs stopped ignoring Linux once they realized that encrypting one hypervisor takes out every virtual machine on it. How attacks on Linux actually happen, and the defenses that matter, starting with backups…
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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…