In 2004, the Open Clip Art Library (OCAL) was launched as a source of free illustrations for anyone to use, for any purpose, without requiring attribution or anything in return. This site was the open source world’s answer to the big stacks of clip art CDs on the shelf of every home office in the 1990s, and to the art dumps provided by the closed-source office and artistic software titles.
A system call is a programmatic way a program requests a service from the kernel, and strace is a powerful tool that allows you to trace the thin layer between user processes and the Linux kernel.
To understand how an operating system works, you first need to understand how system calls work. One of the main functions of an operating system is to provide abstractions to user programs.
An operating system can roughly be divided into two modes:
I have been a huge Mac fan and power user since I started in IT in 2004. But a few months ago—for several reasons—I made the commitment to shift to Linux as my daily driver. This isn't my first attempt at fully adopting Linux, but I'm finding it easier than ever. Here is what inspired me to switch.