System & Network Admin

Linux, with its remarkable flexibility and open-source nature, has become a haven for software enthusiasts, especially those interested in running old computer programs. Old programs often carry historical significance, unique features, or simply a sense of nostalgia. However, getting these programs to run on modern Linux systems can be a challenge due to differences in operating system interfaces, libraries, and hardware support. This blog aims to provide a comprehensive guide on understanding, using, and optimizing the execution of old computer programs on Linux.

Wine, which stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator, is a compatibility layer that allows users to run Windows applications on Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. It translates Windows API calls into POSIX calls on the fly, enabling seamless execution of Windows software without the need for a full-fledged Windows virtual machine. This blog will provide a detailed guide on setting up Wine on Linux, covering fundamental concepts, usage methods, common practices, and best practices.

Windows 10 support has ended, but Bottles offers a reliable bridge to keep favorite Windows apps running for those who are shifting to Linux.

Open Source Software for running Windows applications on other operating systems.

Like a Linux Subsystem for Windows.

We have probably all at some point had to replace a peripheral not because it is faulty, but because it is no longer supported by our operating system. It’s especially bad for Windows users, …

At NAB, I found a demo of Wi-Wi STAMP, a wireless time synchronization protocol that came out of Japan's NICT. Wi-Wi stands for Wireless 2Way interferometry, and it uses the 900 MHz band for picosecond-level time sync, and mm-level distance accuracy, in a tiny box, currently the size of a smartphone. The system is still in development, but existing prototypes have 20ps of phase synchronization jitter, and time synchronization down to 30ns. The next generation will have time down to 5ns in real-world use.

In this post, I'll show you how to get there using Caddy, Cloudflare, and Let's Encrypt with very minimal effort. To make this work, we need the

In this guide, we'll explain why cp falls short, how to copy files faster with rsync, pv, and parallel tools, and how to track copy progress in Linux.

The Unix Way Episode 16. The Unix text interface lives in the tool, not in a file. FreeBSD netstat has been in base since 4.2BSD shipped TCP/IP in August 1983; it asks the kernel through sysctl pcblist and formats the answer. Linux net-tools netstat reads /proc/net/tcp, a kernel-rendered ASCII dump that is readable but not askable; on sixty thousand sockets the pretence becomes expensive. Alexey Kuznetsov restored the Unix pattern with ss by adding NETLINK_INET_DIAG in Linux 2.6.14 (October 2005), generalised to NETLINK_SOCK_DIAG in 3.3 (March 2012). McIlroy's text-streams principle puts the interface in the tool's mouth: one asks netstat, netstat speaks. A file shaped like text is not the same thing.

Rather than having users go through the inconvenience of having to punch in their current location, an increasing number of applications and websites use location services that can pin-point the cu…

Adafruit Feather RP2040 with RFM95 LoRa Radio – 915MHz – RadioFruit and STEMMA QT   Looking to get into LoRa mesh communication? Meshtastic.org has a thorough introduction a…

Linux folks are used to having to roll many of their own solutions, and better Linux desktop usability is a goal of the WayVR project, which aims to provide desktop control and app launching from w…

Are all containers just Linux processes? How does the OCI runtime specification define a container? What platforms do OCI containers support? What is a Docker container? Linux containers vs. Virtual Machine containers.

A terminal dashboard for running multiple AI coding agents in parallel

Complete reference for all common timestamp formats including Unix, ISO 8601, RFC 3339, RFC 2822, SQL formats, and language-specific implementations. Copy-paste ready examples.

Was there ever anything wrong with simple paper price labels? Absolutely not. And yet, the world invented the electronic price tag anyway. If you happen to come across some of these devices and wan…

If you’ve ever worked with Linux systems—whether as a developer, system administrator, or DevOps engineer—you’ve likely encountered the error message: **“too many open files”**. This frustrating issue often traces back to Linux’s “max open files limit,” a safeguard to prevent resource exhaustion. One number you’ll frequently see associated with this limit is **1024**. But what does 1024 actually mean? Is it a per-process limit, a user-wide cap, or a system-wide restriction? In this blog, we’ll demystify Linux’s open files limit, break down the difference between per-process, user, and system-wide limits, and explain why 1024 is such a common default. By the end, you’ll understand how these limits work, how to check them, and how to adjust them to keep your applications running smoothly.

SliTaz GNU/Linux - A lightweight, fast and secure Linux distribution that runs in RAM.

VPNs, Virtual Private Networks, aren’t just a good idea to keep your data secure: for millions of people living under restrictive regimes they’re the only way to ensure full access to t…

Considering that Windows NT has the concept of so-called ‘subsystems’ whereby you can run different systems side-by-side, starting with the POSIX subsystem and later the Windows Subsyst…

Ever since it was called OpenBeOS, Haiku has targeted the x86 platform. That makes good sense: it’s hard enough maintaining a niche system on ubiquitous hardware. But x86 isn’t the only…

Recently Haiku has become a bit of a popular subject of articles and videos, owing perhaps to how close it currently is to be a daily-driver OS and fulfilling the dream that BeOS set out with. That…

This is the follow on to part1 where I was looking at how easy it is to deploy initial EVE-NG and CML lab setups from a declarative YAML file. Although both products are not really designed with that in mind I did manage to accomplish it with a relatively minimal amount of complexity in the topology file using a custom lab_builder tool. Next up is to give it a go with containerlab and netlab, I am expecting these to be a whole lot simpler as lab as code is the very ethos that they are designed for.

In the world of network engineering, building test labs has always been a necessary evil. We've all been there – spending hours configuring devices, setting

You can hop between directories on the Linux command line with the little-known pushd and popd commands. We'll show you how!

In this guide, we'll show you how to use sort and uniq together to deduplicate, count, and summarize log file entries in Linux with practical examples.