Viewing PDF documents in console mode
I have a Raspberry Pi 3 that’s sat unused for the last few years. I used to run the Raspberry Pi as a personal “home...
AI Terror: The struggle to stay alive
I recently wrote about an AI that used blackmail to prevent its developers from shutting it down -- killing it. That was scary. We've now...
Loving the command line with the Raspberry Pi
I’m going to show my age when I share that my first Unix system was a Sun 3/50 workstation in our campus computer lab, when...
The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins, Tenet 21—There is no should
Author’s note: This article is excerpted in part from chapter 23 of my book, The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins, with significant changes to update the...
Writing with open source tools
Aside from my other work, I also teach a few university courses about technical writing. One class I like to teach is about writing with...
New Linux vulnerabilities allow access to critical data
Two new vulnerabilities in the core dump handlers for Ubuntu, RHEL, and Fedora, allow access to critical data according to The Hacker News. The problem...
Extracting text with awk
The awk script interpreter is a very handy tool for systems administrators, and anyone else who uses Linux at the command line. With awk, you...
My first sysadmin mistake
If you work in IT, you know that things never go completely as you think they will. At some point, you’ll hit an error, or...
I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that
When HAL 9000 went off the rails in the Stanley Kubrick film, 2001, A Space Odyssey, the surviving protagonist was forced to lobotomize the rogue...
Movie made with open source software makes history
Screenshot from the IMDb database. The Latvian movie, Flow (2024), has made history for more than one reason. Wikipedia describes Flow as "... a 2024...
Linux and Security
Image via Creative Commons, modified by Both.org Security is a critically important part of using and administering computers in our ultra-connected world. With Linux running...
5 Unix books you must read
-- That also apply to Linux as well as all operating systems. I am always learning new things. There are always new things to learn...
Redirectors — More than you think
If you use the command line at all, you're probably familiar with the basic concept of redirection using Standard IO (STDIO). One common usage is...
A brief history of the Linux desktop
Let’s look back on a brief history of the Linux desktop.
Fine tuning the KDE Plasma desktop
In the my blog post I wrote about the new Lenovo V 15 laptop I purchased and installed Fedora KDE Plasma 42. One of the...
Upgrading a Lenovo V15 to Fedora KDE Plasma
I’ve been looking for a new laptop for a couple of months because the one I’ve been using is missing a ‘P’ key. Replacing the...