What is a socket?
Could someone explain to me what a socket is? I see it in many acronyms in context of SSL, etc.
history
Is the shell ksh93 dead?
On 2013-01-10 Glenn Fowler posted this to the ast-users mailing list:
Why is the root directory denoted by a / sign?
I have done some research about this on Google, but the results were cloudy. Why is the / sign used to denote the root directory. Are there any solid reasons behind it?
Why do /usr and /tmp directories for Linux miss vowels in their spellings?
I have often started to think about this but never found a good answer. Why are these two Unix directories not /user and /temp instead?
Why is $ the default symbol for a user shell and # the default symbol for a root shell?
Operating a standard bash shell on a server, the PS1 prompt defaults to ending in a $ for non-root users, and # for root.
Why does ‘find -exec cmd {} +’ need to end in ‘{} +’?
Preface: I understand the difference between -exec {} ; & -exec {} +. I also don’t have a problem as such, I am just curious about the semantics of find.
Why are POSIX Find Parameters Different from Other Program styles?
Why is a parameter in the POSIX find command added with a single hyphen for multi-character parameter names, while most other programs use single hyphen to indicate multiple single-character flags, and double-hyphens to indicate single parameter names with multiple characters?
History of UNIX not including current directory in $PATH
In the UNIX world, it’s well understood that you need to prefix binaries in the current directory with ./ in order to run them: . is not in $PATH by default. This is to avoid evil binaries overriding system utils like ls and getting code exec.
When and how was the double-dash (–) introduced as an end of options delimiter in Unix/Linux?
I don’t think the shell/utilities in historical Unix nor in something as “recent” as 4.4BSD supported using a double-dash(or two consecutive hyphens) as an end of options delimiter. With FreeBSD, you can see for instance a note introduced in the rm manpages with the 2.2.1 release(1997). But this is just the documentation for one command.
Is the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard a UNIX standard or a GNU/Linux standard?
The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard says where to put stuff in a UNIX distribution.