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 ...

There are four ways to specify that a file is in UNIX System Services when you use the FILENAME statement or FILENAME function: You can also use these specifications in combination. For example, you ...

If you're new to the UNIX operating system, especially if you're familiar with Windows, you'll find that the file access control mechanisms might not be exactly what you expect. File permissions and ...

This November, the Unix community has another notable anniversary to celebrate: the 40th birthday of the first edition of Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie’s Unix Programmers Manual, released in ...

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 ...

One of the last things the Linux kernel does during system boot is mount the root filesystem. The Linux kernel dictates no filesystem structure, but user space applications expect to find files with ...

So, I finally bought 10.3 and it asks me if I want to format with a UNIX or the standard Mac file system. I've read lots about whether to use journaling or not (I will) but I hadn't heard about this ...