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Unix Digest - Articles
Personal blog · unixsheikh.comsystemssecurity
Unix Digest - Articles is a personal blog at unixsheikh.com about systems and security. Since 2019, 73 different Hacker News readers have linked it 125 times, most often “Choose the Browser Carefully”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-20, and you can follow it by feed.
Articles (occasional rants) and tutorials about open source, BSD, GNU/Linux, system administration, programming, and other stuff - the pragmatic way
Most-linked posts?
- Choose the Browser Carefully7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2020-10-20
- Technical reasons to choose FreeBSD over GNU/Linux (2020)6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2020-04-11
- Migrate Everything from Linux to BSD5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2020-01-19
- SQLite the only database you will ever need in most cases3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-04-25
- There is no such thing as privacy on the Internet2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-09-08
- How you keep your dignity and not sell your soul2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-02-11
- Mozilla Is Becoming Evil2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-02-26
- Stop being frantic about code testing2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-03-31
- Important Open Source projects should not use GitHub2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-10-23
- How to write software than will keep working for decades without problems2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-11-08
What Hacker News says?
> I would not normally be quite so much of a jerk about the numerous syntax errors, except that this ends with a suggestion that people, you know, pay for this writing. I don't expect perfection (God knows I make tpyos all the time), but the closing paragraph starts with a sentence that literally has no verb. Are you really bashing the author for imperfect English? The about page clearly mentions that they are not a…
Comment linking /about.html
on “Is the madness ever going to end?”Submitted Is the madness ever going to end? as a story · 679 points
HN discussionI feel comfortable with asserting that the author has never worked on a complex web application. This web-dev hate borders on pathological: this is a guy that seems to specialize in Unix/Linux tooling, doesn't have a single tutorial on web app development [1], and yet has an intense hatred towards a space that he barely understands. These types of arguments are incredibly embarrassing to read, not only because they…
Comment linking /tutorials.html
on “Is the madness ever going to end?”Submitted SQLite the only database you will ever need in most cases as a story · 550 points
HN discussionNo problem! If you search around for "Debian vs BSD", you'll find more exhaustive explanations [1], but it mostly reduces to the fact that BSD is more coherent & organized than GNU/Linux; it's more feature-rich in the domains that sysadmins and hackers appreciate, but feature-sparse in the domains "normal users" appreciate. Depending on your needs these facts can be advantages or disadvantages. I tend to gravitate t…
Comment linking /articles/technical-reasons-to-choose-freebsd-over-linux.html
on “Ask HN: Who operates at scale without containers?”Submitted FreeBSD is an amazing operating system as a story · 395 points
HN discussionThis article could help a little: https://www.unixsheikh.com/articles/sqlite-the-only-database... But you probably won't see it since at the time of writing my response there are already 172 comments.
Comment linking /articles/sqlite-the-only-database-you-will-ever-need-in-most-cases.html
on “Ask HN: Have you used SQLite as a primary database?”Submitted Technical reasons to choose FreeBSD over GNU/Linux (2020) as a story · 391 points
HN discussionLiterally, today, was thinking about leveraging $tree for mindmapping when this dropped: Poor mans mind mapping tool with just the terminal [1] having been inspired by h-m-m (hackers mind map) [2] Went with VimOutliner [3] instead which is one less thing to install and fits so well with a tmux-vim setup. Now all that is missing a sparse tree mode like OrgMode that beats out tabs and splits [4] [1] https://news.ycomb…
Comment linking /tutorials/poor-mans-mind-mapping-tool-with-just-the-terminal.html
on “H-m-m: Hackers mind map”Submitted Technical reasons to choose FreeBSD over GNU/Linux as a story · 381 points
HN discussionEDIT: Paste this hacky snippet into your browser's console to save all of the links into your clipboard: (() => { let result = [...document.querySelectorAll('td a')] .map((link) => link && !link.href.includes('ycombinator') && !link.href.includes('javascript:void') ? link.href : '' ) .filter(Boolean); result = [...new Set(result)]; result.sort(); copy(result.join('\n\n')); })(); Just to help, here's a compiled-list…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Great Blogs by Programmers”Submitted My 70 year old mother has been using Linux on the desktop for the past 21 years as a story · 299 points
HN discussionhttps://unixsheikh.com/ . however it may read, it is helpful.
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Great Blogs by Programmers”Submitted How I store my files as a story · 247 points
HN discussionI found this answer the question plus some additional background info. https://unixsheikh.com/articles/the-terminal-the-console-and...
Comment linking /articles/the-terminal-the-console-and-the-shell-what-are-they.html
on “What is the difference between a terminal, a shell, a TTY and a console? (2012)”Submitted Battle testing data integrity verification with ZFS and Btrfs as a story · 181 points
HN discussionThis is a really nice write-up on using FreeBSD as a destop: https://www.unixsheikh.com/tutorials/how-to-setup-freebsd-wi... https://www.unixsheikh.com/tutorials/how-to-setup-freebsd-wi... https://www.unixsheikh.com/tutorials/how-to-setup-freebsd-wi...
Comment linking /tutorials/how-to-setup-freebsd-with-a-riced-desktop-part-3-i3.html
on “FreeBSD 2020 Q4 Status Report”Submitted Migrate Everything from Linux to BSD as a story · 120 points
HN discussion>Brave also collects your data and sells it back to advertisers but they'll give you their fake coins to do it. I was reading this page earlier today. https://www.unixsheikh.com/articles/choose-your-browser-care... The criticism against brave seems pretty hollow without really any remaining criticism. Brave does have this: https://brave.com/privacy/browser/ Would be interesting to see a link showing Brave collecting…
Comment linking /articles/choose-your-browser-carefully.html
on “Mozilla Rally”Submitted OpenBSD Router Guide as a story · 111 points
HN discussionYou mean something like this? https://www.unixsheikh.com/articles/battle-testing-data-inte...
Comment linking /articles/battle-testing-data-integrity-verification-with-zfs-btrfs-and-mdadm-dm-integrity.html
on “Btrfs on Zoned Block Devices”Submitted Don’t submit to conformity as a story · 85 points
HN discussionOnly you can’t copy it if it’s in the middle of a transaction or you corrupt it and have to roll back the Journal. And coping the journal, WAL, and DB itself directly and trying to backup from that isn’t recommended. In fact SQLite itself has a purpose built backup API. https://www.unixsheikh.com/articles/sqlite-the-only-database... Yes, technically a SQLite database is just a file on disk. And for the most part, yo…
Comment linking /articles/sqlite-the-only-database-you-will-ever-need-in-most-cases.html
on “SQLite the only database you will ever need in most cases”Submitted How to write software than will keep working for decades without problems as a story · 74 points
HN discussion> A giant saltation from most first world computer users being aware of Linux, to hardly anyone knowing what BSD is. You seem to have misread my first sentence. > Schade's few paragraphs here come across as equally gentle and humorous-he's not really aggrieved that FreeBSD is treated like a Linux distro; he would like avoid the confusion that might cause to users who end up liking it. My commentary was in agreement…
Comment linking /articles/technical-reasons-to-choose-freebsd-over-linux.html
on “Tutorial sites treating FreeBSD like a Linux distro”Submitted SQLite the only database you will ever need in most cases as a story · 72 points
HN discussionThis is one of my favorite posts about it. https://www.unixsheikh.com/articles/no-your-api-isnt-rest.ht... The author got Roy T. Fielding, one of the principle authors of the HTTP specification and the originator of the Representational State Transfer (REST), to comment on this issue by email (was since removed when the author changed his blog).
Comment linking /articles/no-your-api-isnt-rest.html
on “Ask HN: Anyone here switch to Go for building (REST) APIs?”Submitted The Delusions of Debian as a story · 64 points
HN discussionThe to-and-fro can be seen continued: * https://fediverse.blog/~/AllGoodThings/should-you-migrate-fr... * https://unixsheikh.com/articles/why-you-should-migrate-every...
Comment linking /articles/why-you-should-migrate-everything-from-linux-to-bsd-part-2.html
on “Migrate Everything from Linux to BSD”Submitted Poor mans mind mapping tool with just the terminal as a story · 59 points
HN discussion
