One of the questions that Unix users are sometimes reluctant to ask is how all the directory names — like /etc, /var and /usr/local — came about in the first place. Why did we adopt the particular ...

People who have had bad experiences on Windows disks that performed poorly after they had become very fragmented often wonder if they need to apply some kind of periodic analysis and defragmentation ...

The Unix operating system is one of computing's most significant technologies, providing the framework that the familiar Linux and Mac OS X operating systems were developed on. Unix can be a viable ...

GUIs are great—we wouldn’t want to live without them. But if you’re a Mac or Linux user and you want to get the most out of your operating system (and your keystrokes), you owe it to yourself to get ...

While the average Unix user is generally satisfied by the date/time stamps that he sees when using the ls -l command, it is sometimes useful to remember that there are actually several time stamps ...

Windows users who dive into *nix without first researching the operating system are in for quite a shock. The complete lack of a C:\ drive can send Windows switchers into a tailspin. Thankfully, IBM ...

Maybe its pervasiveness has long obscured its origins. But Unix, the operating system that in one derivative or another powers nearly all smartphones sold worldwide, was born 50 years ago from the ...

Have you ever needed to format a new hard drive or USB drive, and were given the option of selecting from acronyms like FAT, FAT32, or NTFS? Or did you once try plugging in an external device, only ...