To some, an operating system is a burden or waste of resources, like those working on embedded systems and other low-power applications. To others it’s necessary, abstracting away hardware so that ...

What are open-source operating systems? Underpinning an operating system, for example Windows on your PC or Android on your phone, is many, many lines of code. Allowing anyone to inspect the source ...

Over 20 years ago, I was a managing editor for a company and was charged with building Linux content for the site. At some point during that gig, I was told that I had to use Microsoft Windows and a ...

Lauded for avoiding the typical vague, high-level survey approach found in many texts, earlier editions of this bestselling book removed the mystery by explaining the internal structure of an ...

The computer's master control program. When a computer is turned on, a small "boot program" loads the operating system. Although additional system modules may be loaded as needed, the main part, known ...

One way or another, you’re interacting with operating systems. Your smartphone uses one, and your tablet and laptop do as well. However, little is said about how the ways we interact with our ...

Developers talk a lot about “immutability.” Outside the technical world, it usually means something negative: unmoving, inflexible, and entrenched. However, in the technical field, these features ...

I'm no stranger to weird operating systems. I've run Tails from a USB stick (an OS that blew the lid off the NSA) and installed a 50 MB operating system to revive a decade-old PC. And I thought I'd ...

The recent integration of post-quantum cryptography (PQC) into Windows 11 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 marks a pivotal moment in cybersecurity. As quantum computing continues advancing, the ...