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    • Wake Forest, NC, — 2025-09-20
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1

Tinkering with Immutable Linux: How Fedora Cosmic Atomic Won Me Over

January 13, 2026January 6, 2026
2

Using Wildcards on the Bash Command Line

January 12, 2026January 5, 2026
3

2025 — a Great Year for Both.org

January 10, 2026January 11, 2026
4

How Immutable Linux Could Save Libraries Thousands

January 9, 2026December 31, 2025
5

The difference in open source licenses

January 8, 2026January 8, 2026
6

Counting words from online articles

January 7, 2026December 29, 2025
7

Buying a Linux laptop that will last

January 6, 2026January 6, 2026
8

Introduction to the BtrFS Filesystem

January 5, 2026December 25, 2025
9

Quick Tip for umount

January 3, 2026December 31, 2025
  • Home
  • Jim Hall

jhall

Jim Hall is an open source software developer and advocate. His first contribution to open source was in 1993 with a patch to GNU Emacs, but he is probably best known for his work on FreeDOS, the open source version of the DOS operating system, and for his work on usability in open source software. In addition to writing open source software, Jim also writes about open source software, including Both.org and All Things Open, and about technical writing at Technically We Write.
License Open Source

The difference in open source licenses

Not all open source licenses are the same. Choose the one that matters to you.

Jim Hall
January 8, 2026January 8, 2026
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Command Line Linux

Counting words from online articles

Here’s how I automated counting words from a series of articles.

Jim Hall
January 7, 2026December 29, 2025
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Hardware Linux

Buying a Linux laptop that will last

My advice when buying a new laptop to run Linux.

Jim Hall
January 6, 2026January 6, 2026
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Command Line Linux

Counting files and words from the command line

Here’s a practical example of how I use the command line to tally how much I wrote this year.

Jim Hall
December 30, 2025December 22, 2025
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FreeDOS Fun Text Editors

Edit text with this Emacs-like editor

If you’re already familiar with GNU Emacs, you should feel right at home in Freemacs.

Jim Hall
December 27, 2025December 16, 2025
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Command Line FreeDOS Fun

Automate tasks with FreeDOS BAT files

Here’s a helpful guide to batch files under FreeDOS.

Jim Hall
December 26, 2025December 16, 2025
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FreeDOS Fun

2 ways to listen to music on FreeDOS

Two great programs to let you listen to music and audio files on DOS.

Jim Hall
December 25, 2025December 16, 2025
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FreeDOS Fun Programming

Old-school programming with BW BASIC

Install Bywater BASIC on your FreeDOS system and start experimenting with BASIC programming.

Jim Hall
December 24, 2025December 16, 2025
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FreeDOS Fun

How to add and remove packages on FreeDOS

Learn how to use FDIMPLES, the FreeDOS package manager.

Jim Hall
December 23, 2025December 16, 2025
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FreeDOS Fun Text Editors

The FreeDOS editor makes it easy

FreeDOS provides a user-friendly text editor called FreeDOS Edit.

Jim Hall
December 22, 2025December 24, 2025
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FreeDOS Fun

4 cool facts about FreeDOS for #DOScember

It’s December, and that means it’s #DOScember – so let’s celebrate with a weeklong series about FreeDOS.

Jim Hall
December 21, 2025December 16, 2025
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Community Fun

Gift ideas for 2025

Use this list of unique gift ideas for this holiday season!

Jim Hall
December 10, 2025December 9, 2025
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Hardware Linux

13 years is a long time for a laptop

I’ll always have fond memories of my X1 Carbon. Goodbye, little laptop.

Jim Hall
November 10, 2025November 8, 2025
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Fedora Raspberry Pi

Installing Fedora 43 Minimal on a Raspberry Pi

I prefer running my Pi in text mode. Here’s how I did it with Fedora 43.

Jim Hall
November 5, 2025November 5, 2025
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Fedora Linux Moving to Linux

Installing Fedora 43 Xfce

Fedora Xfce is a sleek, modern desktop for Linux.

Jim Hall
November 4, 2025November 3, 2025
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Linux Programming

Read and write data in C

If you’re new to C programming, here are a few tips to improve reading and writing files.

Jim Hall
October 30, 2025September 26, 2025
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Posts pagination

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David Both ATO Interview

Last October at All Things Open (ATO) I was interviewed by Jason Hibbits of We Love Open Source. It just posted this week in the article “Why today’s AI isn’t intelligent (yet)“.

Random Quote

Unix is simple. It just takes a genius to understand its simplicity.

— Dennis Ritchie

Links: Moving to Linux

  • 7 Reasons Fedora Might Be a Better Windows Replacement Than Linux Mint
  • 7 Reasons Why Windows Users Avoid Linux (Which Aren’t True Anymore)
  • Best Linux distros to try before Windows 10 support ends
  • How to switch your Windows 10 PC to Linux Mint – for free
  • I replaced my entire Microsoft Office subscription with free open-source apps
  • Isn’t It Time to Switch to Linux? 12 Reasons to Abandon Windows
  • KDE for W10 Exiles
  • Linux: A true story
  • Why Denmark is dumping Microsoft Office and Windows for LibreOffice and Linux
  • Why I Switched to Linux From Windows

“systemd for SysAdmins” Now Available

May 13,2025

My latest book — a #1 New Release on Amazon — “systemd for Linux  SysAdmins” is now available from my publisher, Apress, and on Amazon.

Technically We Write — Our Partner Site

Our partner site, Technically We Write, has published a number of articles from several contributors to Both.org. Check them out.

Technically We Write is a community of technical writers, technical editors, copyeditors, web content writers, and all other roles in technical communication.

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  • About Us
  • End of 10 Events
    • Wake Forest, NC, — 2025-09-20
  • Linux
    • Why I use Linux
    • The real reason we use Linux
  • My Linux Books
    • systemd for Linux SysAdmins
    • Using and Administering Linux – Zero to SysAdmin: 2nd Edition
    • The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins
    • Linux for Small Business Owners
    • Errata
      • Errata for The Linux Philosophy for SysAdmins
      • Errata for Using and Administering Linux — 1st Edition
      • Errata for Using and Administering Linux — 2nd Edition
  • Open Source Resources
    • What is Open Source?
    • What is Linux?
    • What is Open Source Software?
    • The Open Source Way
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