How to access Rescue mode (runlevel 1) in Linux
I frequently find need to perform maintenance on the filesystem of one of my dozen or so physical computers. Many maintenance tasks require the system to be running the Rescue.target, formerly, runlevel 1. There are two methods you can use to enter Rescue mode.
The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins, Tenet 06 — Be the Lazy SysAdmin
I am a lazy SysAdmin. I am also a very productive SysAdmin. Those two seemingly contradictory statements are not mutually exclusive, rather they are complementary in a very positive way. This article is about working hard at the right tasks to optimize our own efficiency. It’s about finding a few of the myriad ways to use the short cuts already built into Linux.
Top Five reasons I use Dolphin as my file manager
Linux has many file managers, and all of us have our favorites. I’m currently using Dolphin. Find out why.
Top Five reasons to use KDE Plasma desktop
As many of my readers know, I have had problems with KDE Plasma in the past. I won’t bore you with a rehash of those problems, but for many years I used KDE and was very happy with it. While it was having problems I tried several other desktops but finally switched to Xfce.
KDE Plasma 6.1 is included with Fedora 40 and I always try new major releases of KDE Plasma and other desktops. I did this time, too and I’m very happy to report that all the problems I’ve experienced in the past have been completely resolved.
The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins, Tenet 05 — Embrace the CLI
Author's note: This article is excerpted in part from chapter 6 of my book, The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins, with some changes. The Force is...
Happy Birthday to the IBM PC
The IBM PC turned 43 on the 12th of August and I, for one, have fond and interesting memories of its birth. I’m a bit behind the curve on writing this article, but better late than never. You can read the public history and the original specifications on Wikipedia, but this is my story — at least part of it.
When STEM becomes STEAM
For the last two years I've been invited to staff a table at a local STEM Saturday event for school kids, and to present at...
The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins, Tenet 04 — Use the Linux FHS
The Linux Filesystem Hierarchical Standard (FHS) defines the structure of the Linux directory tree. It names a set of standard directories and designates their purposes.
Results of the Great Both.org Challenge
Since no one entered out little challenge, we have no new results to share. I was hoping to see if the results from this time...
Randomness, zero and more
Photo by Breakingpic from Pexels Randomness is an important tool in any computing environment. It's critical to creating public/private keypairs (PPKP) for use with tools like SSH,...
The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins, Tenet 03 — Everything is a File
Author's note: This article is excerpted in part from chapter 5 of my book, The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins, with some changes. This is one...
Top Five reasons I use Konsole terminal emulator
The most important tool for all Linux SysAdmins is the terminal emulator we choose. There are many from which to choose and all have features...
Gaming drives computing
We all play games on our computers. Whether a simple game of solitaire, chess, a first person shooter, adventure, action, arcade, military tactics, various types...
Getting started with Linux
I recently became a member of several Linux groups on Facebook because I was interested to see what they were all about. Many of the...
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How to remove existing traditional swap partitions
Swap space is a common and important aspect of computing today regardless of operating system. Linux uses swap space to substitute for RAM when it becomes too full to effectively support additional programs or data. It is a way to temporarily enable the system to keep running albeit at the cost of reduced performance. However the use of zram for swap space has provided an interesting, if counter-intuitive, method for providing a reasonable amount of swap space while significantly improving swap performance.