Linux and the Unix Philosophy

Mike Gancarz

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gancarz, Mike. Linux and the Unix philosophy / Mike Gancarz. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Linux. 2. UNIX (Computer file) 3. Operating systems (Computers) I. Title.

QA76.76.O63G364 2003

005.4'3—dc21 2003051482

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Every book should have a dedication.

This book is dedicated to the early adopters of Linux everywhere. You go, gang!

—MG

About the Author

Mike Gancarz is an applications and programming consultant in Atlanta, Georgia. Using Linux, Unix, and Java tools, his team develops award-winning imaging solutions for the financial services industry.

An expert in Unix application design, Mike has been an advocate of the Unix approach for more than twenty years. As a member of the team that gave birth to the X Window System, he wrote uwm, the first customizable window manager for X. Although uwm has long been put out to pasture, the usability concepts he pioneered are still found in modern window managers running on Linux today.

While working at Digital Equipment Corporation's Unix Engineering Group in Nashua, New Hampshire, Mike became intimately familiar with the Unix command set in leading the port of the Unix commands and utilities to the 64-bit Alpha processor. His other efforts at Digital led to the development of COMET, a high-performance text retrieval system. Written in the Unix shell language, COMET revolutionized technical support at Digital by indexing most of the company's internal documentation and source code, making instant answers available to Digital's support staff around the world.

Later Mike turned to independent consulting on web development projects in the Atlanta area. His clients have included IBM, Sprint, Worldcom, and various financial services firms.

Mike resides in a northern Atlanta suburb with his wife, two children, and the world's most adorable chihuahua. When he's not tinkering with Linux, he enjoys long games of Civilization and an occasional game of chess.

Acknowledgments

The birth of a book is like the birth of a child: every one is different. The writing and publication of my first book, The UNIX Philosophy, had gone fairly smoothly as books go. Had I known that I would have faced so much personal turmoil during the writing of this second book, I would not likely have signed the publishing contract. I would have thought twice before getting involved in this project.

Having endured the personal turmoil amidst the writing and publishing process, I admit that this book is a sort of catharsis then, both personally and philosophically. So I must give credit to the great God Almighty for getting me through this process once again. He first and foremost deserves the credit for creating me to do such a work as this.

Kudos go to Pam Chester, acquisitions editor at Digital Press, an imprint of Butterworth-Heinemann, for selling me on the need to do this new edition and then persevering when it had every appearance of becoming another prepublication casualty. Thanks also go to her boss, Theron Shreve, for having the patience to allow the book to come to its full fruition.

I was fortunate to have an awesome crew of developmental reviewers for this edition. Thanks go to Jim Lieb, Scott Morris, Rob Lembree, and Jes Sorensen for their thoughtful insights. Their responses helped me see things in different ways and added much interesting depth to the book. They also provided much-needed encouragement on the home stretch.

Not only does Jon "maddog" Hall deserve special mention for providing an insightful foreword to this book, his efforts at Unix and Linux advocacy are a model for all of us. Few can match his tireless efforts at bringing the message of the Unix way to so many people.

Thanks also go to Phil Sutherland, formerly of Digital Press, for the email exchanges we'd had on the original book idea. Even though it didn't turn out quite the way that either of us expected, he can take heart that his efforts to convince me to write this were not in vain. Some things just take a little longer than others.

Having an author in a household means that everyone learns what it's like to live with a writer. Thank you, Sarah, for all that typing, as boring as it must have been for you. Adam, it's paintball time. I am deeply grateful for the sacrifice you made. And, most importantly, thanks go to my wife Viv for supporting me throughout the writing of this book. Your "Honey-Do" list must be a mile long by now.