Hacker News with Generative AI: Unix

The history and use of /etc/glob in early Unixes (utoronto.ca)
One of the innovations that the V7 Bourne shell introduced was built in shell wildcard globbing, which is to say expanding things like *, ?, and so on.
Unix, Operating Systems, History, Shell, Programming
67 points by zdw 5 days ago | 47 comments
lc: List files in categories (and columns) – from Coherent Unix clone (github.com/gdm85)
This is a port of 'lc' (List files in categories and columns) from MWC (Mark Williams Company) Coherent UNIX.
Unix, Open Source, Software, Programming
78 points by networked 8 days ago | 31 comments
/bin/sh: the biggest Unix security loophole (1984) [pdf] (tuhs.org)
Unix, Security, History, Programming, Operating Systems
100 points by vitplister 9 days ago | 54 comments
Seconds Since the Epoch (aphyr.com)
This is not at all news, but it comes up often enough that I think there should be a concise explanation of the problem. People, myself included, like to say that POSIX time, also known as Unix time, is the number of seconds since the Unix epoch, which was 1970-01-01 at 00:00:00.
Unix, Programming, Time, Software
298 points by zdw 23 days ago | 220 comments
Biggest shell programs (github.com/oils-for-unix)
Programming, Shell Scripting, Unix
259 points by todsacerdoti 42 days ago | 123 comments
Unix Review Magazine Interviews Larry Tesler (computeradsfromthepast.substack.com)
The worst problems occur when people walk into their office and—without warning—find technology they never asked for.
Unix, History, Technology, Interviews, Magazines
45 points by rbanffy 47 days ago | 13 comments
When was the famous "sudo warning" introduced? (2019) (stackexchange.com)
On all Unix-like operating systems, sudo is often provided as the standard package for executing commands as superuser (or an alternative user). When sudo is invoked by the user for the first time, many systems print the following well-known "Sudo Warning":
Unix, Operating Systems, Security, Sudo, History
158 points by Boogie_Man 47 days ago | 176 comments
Disillusioning the Magic of the Fork System Call (codingconfessions.com)
Unix-like operating systems famously use the fork system call for creating a new process. The way this system call works in the user code can be quite bewildering when you first learn about it.
Operating Systems, Unix, Programming
7 points by rbanffy 49 days ago | 1 comments
Disillusioning the Magic of the Fork System Call (codingconfessions.com)
Unix-like operating systems famously use the fork system call for creating a new process.
Operating Systems, Unix, Programming, System Calls
21 points by RojerGS 52 days ago | 0 comments
Pipe Viewer – A Unix Utility You Should Know About (catonmat.net)
Hi all! I'm starting a new article series here. This one is going to be about Unix utilities that you should know about. The articles will discuss one Unix program at a time. I'll try to write a good introduction to the tool and give as many examples as I can think of.
Unix, Programming, Tutorials
236 points by lnyan 59 days ago | 44 comments
Undergrad thought he had mastered Unix in weeks. Then he discovered rm -rf (theregister.com)
Miles’ version of the .logout file included the notoriously dangerous rm -rf ~* command, which erases everything it can find in a user’s home directory.
Unix, Programming, Mistakes, Security, Software
25 points by thesuperbigfrog 61 days ago | 27 comments
S/Sed/Ed (aartaka.me)
This post starts with holding a grudge: Posix regular expressions are extremely hard to get wrong? Uh... Have you really written any? Sounds like you might not really know either Posix or PCRE. u/bigmell in reply to 5 (Wrong) Regex To Parse Parentheses
Regular Expressions, Programming, Text Processing, Unix, Software
51 points by thunderbong 64 days ago | 29 comments
Brian Kernighan Reflects on Unix: A History and a Memoir [video] (youtube.com)
Unix, Operating Systems, History, Computer Science, Memoirs
173 points by zdw 67 days ago | 32 comments
Lynis – Security auditing and hardening tool, for Unix-based systems (github.com/CISOfy)
Lynis - Security auditing and hardening tool, for UNIX-based systems.
Security, Unix, Auditing, Tools
67 points by Qision 72 days ago | 21 comments
Unix Programmer's Manual Third Edition [pdf] (1973) (dspinellis.github.io)
Unix, Programming, History, Manuals, Software
190 points by rbanffy 73 days ago | 34 comments
The history of Unix's ioctl and signal about window sizes (utoronto.ca)
One of the somewhat obscure features of Unix is that the kernel has a specific interface to get (and set) the 'window size' of your terminal, and can also send a Unix signal to your process when that size changes.
Unix, Operating Systems, Terminal Emulators, Signals
113 points by ingve 75 days ago | 48 comments
Unix core utilities implemented in Haskell (github.com/Gandalf-)
Unix core utilities implemented in Haskell.
Programming, Haskell, Unix
243 points by ocean_moist 80 days ago | 95 comments
Against /tmp (dotat.at)
I commented on Lobsters that /tmp is usually a bad idea, which caused some surprise. I suppose /tmp security bugs were common in the 1990s when I was learning Unix, but they are pretty rare now so I can see why less grizzled hackers might not be familiar with the problems.
Security, Unix, Operating Systems
257 points by todsacerdoti 88 days ago | 159 comments
The useful use of cat (mrmr.io)
Some people insist that we should never use a cat.
Unix, Command Line, Programming
96 points by LorenDB 90 days ago | 105 comments
bc Is the Only Calculator You Need in Unix (medium.com)
bc, for basic calculator, is an arbitrary-precision calculator language with syntax similar to the C programming language. In this post, we will explore the features of bc and how to use it.
Unix, Programming, Command Line, Calculators
5 points by theali 93 days ago | 1 comments
Unix for Poets: Basic NLP Tasks Using Unix Tools (medium.com)
Often, we become so captivated by complexity and sophistication that we overlook the profound effectiveness of simple, fundamental methods.
Unix, Programming, Text Processing, Data Analysis
7 points by theali 95 days ago | 0 comments
We Should Teach Students Unix, or the Power of Pipes (atthis.link)
Teaching the command-line is increasingly eschewed for all-in-one IDEs and web platforms. For long-term transferable skills, we should revisit UNIX in Computing curriculums.
Education, Programming, Operating Systems, Unix
7 points by ggpsv 95 days ago | 1 comments
Apple macOS 15 Sequoia is officially Unix (theregister.com)
Apple macOS 15 Sequoia appeared in mid-September and is an official, compliant version of UNIX™, but that may not mean exactly what you think.
Operating Systems, Apple, Unix
84 points by pjmlp 97 days ago | 68 comments
Apple macOS 15 Sequoia is officially Unix (theregister.com)
Apple macOS 15 Sequoia appeared in mid-September and is an official, compliant version of UNIX™, but that may not mean exactly what you think.
Apple, macOS, Unix, Operating Systems, Technology
10 points by LorenDB 98 days ago | 2 comments
Switching customers from Linux to BSD because boring is good (theregister.com)
EuroBSDcon 2024 One of Stefano Marinelli's NetBSD boxes sat quietly serving for a decade, because everyone forgot about it. This is how Unix is meant to be.
Operating Systems, BSD, Linux, Unix
49 points by rodrigo975 101 days ago | 26 comments
Show HN: My microkernel-based OS built from scratch now has basic Unix commands (github.com/lux-operating-system)
lux (intentionally stylized in lowercase) is a portable work-in-progress microkernel written from scratch that currently runs on x86_64, with future plans for an ARM64 port.
Operating Systems, Open Source, Programming, Microkernels, Unix
69 points by jewelcodesxo 101 days ago | 8 comments
The Unix Workbench (seankross.com)
This work by Sean Kross is licensed CC0. Zero rights reserved.
Unix, Operating Systems, Tools, Command Line
5 points by thunderbong 103 days ago | 1 comments
Daemonization in Unix programs is probably about restarting programs (utoronto.ca)
It's standard for Unix daemon programs to 'daemonize' themselves when they start, completely detaching from how they were run; this behavior is quite old and these days it's somewhat controversial and sometimes considered undesirable. At this point you might ask why programs even daemonize themselves in the first place, and while I don't know for sure, I do have an opinion. My belief is that daemonization is because of restarting daemon programs, not starting them at boot.
Unix, Operating Systems, Programming, History
86 points by ingve 103 days ago | 59 comments
Traditionally, init on Unix was not a service manager as such (utoronto.ca)
Init (the process) has historically had a number of roles but, perhaps surprisingly, being a 'service manager' (or a 'daemon manager') was not one of them in traditional init systems.
Operating Systems, Unix, System Administration
39 points by rbanffy 104 days ago | 2 comments
Idiomatic Awk (2010) (backreference.org)
This is just one of many possible ways to do this.
Programming, Tools, Text Processing, Unix
132 points by StefanBatory 104 days ago | 33 comments