Unix Digest - Articles

Whether you're dealing with a web application or some other application, all user input should always be considered "hostile" and "dangerous", but you should not just universally sanitize user input.

systemd is great as an init system, but - as you know - it's not just an init system, it's a behemoth of a monster.

To some developers AI seems to be the best thing since sliced bread, while to others, AI is more or less useless.

Perhaps the younger generation don't know anything about the past "evils" of Microsoft and naively believe that Microsoft is now the good friend to open source, but the truth is that all Microsoft acquisitions of open source projects is a business tactic…

As with all automated tools, AIs can be useful to a certain extent, but unlike code completion tools or memory debugging tools or profiling tools, not only does AIs often produce bad code, but you also need to seriously consider the moral implications as…

Bookmarks are great, but just as much as I need them, I also find them dismal.

When a company is small it's easy to care about the good and the evil it does, but when a company gets big, typically profit becomes the sole concern and that is when evilness takes root and starts to spread.

When I code, I don't use AI and I don't even use code completion, this post is about why not.

According to an article on TechCrunch Microsoft CEO says up to 30% of the company’s code is written by AI.

A lot of people experience online friends "vanishing" without notice.

The Internet is filled with blog posts, articles on tech media, and videos on YouTube about why Linux is not the main operating system on the PC desktop. "5 reasons why", "10 reasons why", bla, bla, bla.

I truly and passionately hate hype.

In this article I share the results of a lab test in which I tested writing data to the filesystem directly with PHP fopen versus storing data in SQLite, PostgreSQL and MariaDB on different filesystems, mainly FFS2 on OpenBSD, UFS on FreeBSD, ext4 and XFS…

As of late, Passkeys are promoted as the killer of passwords and a lot of companies are now manically transitioning from passwords to Passkeys.

Today web developers are told that in order to do so-called modern web development they need to use JavaScript frameworks because they are an essential part of modern front-end web development.

People who consider trying out one of the different BSD variants, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD or DragonFly BSD, often ask about the main differences between the four projects.

A big percentage of so-called experts today only know how to configure tools, but they understand nothing about how things work at the deeper level.

Nowadays PC gamers are used as guinea pigs when big gaming titles are released with major bugs, major performance issues, and other similar problems.

Throughout my life I have been involved in many different projects and exciting endeavors, not only computer or technology related, but also within other "spheres of life".

Some people who use open source software think or feel that they somehow have a right upon the developers of such software to provide support or service of some kind.

Even though being a ports or package maintainer is voluntary, it carries a heavy responsibility.

I have multiple times criticized tech on political grounds, but is that a valid reason for criticism or does that simply constitute ranting?

Admittedly, I do occasional rant on this website - sorry!

Since my article The flaws of distro hopping and asking other people about their OS of choice I have had a number of people writing to me asking for my specific advice regarding their choice of operating system, both for personal usage and for business us…

The POSIX standard requires that operating systems maintain filesystem metadata that record when each file was last accessed.

Even though the technology related news media isn't about inhibiting thinking or controlling the masses, like the regular news media, the technology media is mostly using the same tactics by creating sensational and story-formattet junk.

This is a small introduction to a really great article about how toxic it is to follow the daily news and what to do instead.

The term zero trust is a security model, also known as "perimeterless security" that has been known for a long time and that was e.g. implemented internally at Google in 2009 in a project called BeyondCorp.

A lot of bad practice has permeated the software development industry, one such practice is to blindly trust code when using third party libraries, frameworks or packages.

Distro hopping is a term that refers to the activity of computer users constantly installing and trying out different Linux distributions, either on bare metal or in a virtual environment, having a really difficult time deciding what to use.

If you're looking for answers related to Linux or BSD (or anything for that matter), Reddit is often not the right place to search for them.

Since I wrote The delusions of Debian, I have received a lot of email.

Debian used to be a very famous Linux distribution in the communications industry and I have been running it in production since about 1998 up until the time when the systemd conflict arose.

A lot of myth and misunderstanding exist regarding how security is handled by package maintainers on the different Linux distributions and BSD variants.

Reddit, fora, mailing lists, etc. are filled with questions and debates about whether operating system A is more secure than operating system B, or whether operating system A is faster than operating system B.

I have previously written about some of the major problems with so-called modern web development in some of my articles, mainly So-called modern web developers are the culprits and Is the madness ever going to end?

There is something seriously wrong with the IT industry.

My mother turned 70, February 2021, and she has been using Linux on the desktop for the past 21 years.

As a response to my article, So-called modern web developers are the culprits, someone stated that my advice was outdated because today we make web apps, not websites.

2022 needs to be the year when we seriously begin to get rid of bloatware, hype and trends in web development.

During the last couple of weeks I have had the opportunity to work with a web application that required a new user management system.

I think that most people in the software industry have been in the situation of running a legacy system that everyone dreads because it was developed on a platform that was outdated a long time ago.

As soon as you step outside your house or apartment, you're located in the "public arena" where there is no privacy.

I am sure you have heard it many times, "use the right tool for the job", yet at the same time we're often inclined toward a specific operating system or a specific piece of software.

Have you ever lost important data?

It is extremely disappointing to watch people cheer in ignorance at having their FOSS work and time exploited by one of the largest and crookiest companies in the world (GitHub, i.e.

Is it even possible to stay sane in today's world of tech?

Whether we deal with technology, religion, science, or any other subject, nothing has ever been more harmful to the human race, both generally and individually, than people submitting to social conformity rather than use the gift of their intellect!