One of the files that the average Unix sysadmin rarely looks at, almost never changes and yet depends on every time he or she reboots a system is the /etc/inittab file. This modest little file ...

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 ...

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 ...

We have looked at the fuser command before to display information about what users or processes are keeping file systems busy. This command can save you a lot of time tracking when you need to quickly ...

In the realm of modern data management, few technologies hold as much promise and versatility as the ZFS file system. Originally developed by Sun Microsystems for their Solaris operating system, ZFS ...

A filesystem is a way that an operating system organizes files on a disk. These filesystems come in many different flavors depending on your specific needs. For Windows, you have the NTFS, FAT, FAT16, ...

One of the difficulties of switching from one OS to the other is trying to locate all the system files and keep track of where the new OS stores all its settings. The image above, which you can also ...

To get started as a Linux (or Unix) user, you need to have a good perspective on how Linux works and a handle on some of the most basic commands. This first post in a “getting started” series examines ...

In my last article I talked about working with shortcuts in Ubuntu Linux. In this article I want to explain the basics of the Linux file system and where you can expect to find things. Once again, I ...