Linux

Meeting i3wm: A Choice for Productivity The i3 window manager (i3wm) is a tiling window manager focused on efficiency and productivity. It was first developed in 2009 by German developer Michael Stapelberg to overcome the limitations of the existing wmii window manager. The name “i3” stands for “improved tiling wm”. Written in C with approximately 10,000 lines of concise code, i3 provides lightweight yet powerful functionality. It has gained significant popularity among developers, system administrators, and power users who prefer keyboard-only workflows with minimal mouse usage. It shows particularly high adoption rates among Arch Linux, Gentoo, and NixOS users. ...

ZRAM Concept and Principles ZRAM (formerly known as compcache) is a memory compression technology provided by the Linux kernel that creates a virtual block device by compressing a portion of RAM. This technology was first developed by Nitin Gupta in 2009 and officially integrated into the Linux kernel from version 3.14. It has been widely used ever since. The core idea of ZRAM is to utilize compressed RAM as swap space instead of disk-based swap, effectively reducing memory usage without the overhead of disk I/O operations. This approach significantly improves system performance, especially in memory-constrained environments. ...

The Need for Changing MAC Address MAC address (Media Access Control address) is a unique physical address that identifies network devices. It is permanently assigned to the Network Interface Card (NIC) during manufacturing and is designed to remain unchanged. However, there are situations where you may need to temporarily or permanently change your MAC address for reasons such as security, privacy protection, bypassing network access controls, or setting up test environments. This is particularly useful when using public Wi-Fi or when you want to prevent network tracking. Most Linux distributions, including Ubuntu, provide the ability to change MAC addresses through software. This post explores how to safely and effectively change MAC addresses in Ubuntu. ...

Wine Concept and How It Works Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator) is a compatibility layer that enables Windows programs to run on UNIX-compatible operating systems such as Linux, macOS, and BSD, including Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. It is an open-source project started by Bob Amstadt and Eric Youngdale in 1993, with over 30 years of development history. The name Wine is a recursive acronym meaning “Wine Is Not an Emulator,” chosen to emphasize that Wine is not a simple emulator. ...

Docker is a platform for developing, deploying, and running container-based applications. It uses Linux kernel namespaces and cgroups to run applications in isolated environments. This guide explains the step-by-step process of installing Docker and running your first container on Ubuntu Linux. Docker Installation Requirements Docker Installation Requirements Docker Engine runs on 64-bit Linux systems and requires kernel version 3.10 or higher. For Ubuntu, versions 20.04 LTS, 22.04 LTS, and 24.04 LTS are officially supported. ...

SSH (Secure Shell) is an encrypted network protocol that enables secure remote access to other computers over a network for executing commands and transferring files. It was developed in 1995 by Tatu Ylönen at Helsinki University of Technology in Finland to address security vulnerabilities in Telnet and rsh (remote shell). Today, OpenSSH has become the de facto standard implementation and serves as a core tool for server management worldwide. Installing and configuring an SSH server on Ubuntu enables remote server management not only within local networks but also over the internet. This guide covers the entire process from OpenSSH server installation to security configuration. ...

A static IP address is an IP address manually specified by a network administrator instead of being dynamically assigned from a DHCP server. It is essential in environments where the IP address must not change, such as server operation, remote access, and network service hosting. Ubuntu 24.04 LTS uses Netplan as the default network configuration tool and also supports nmcli and nmtui interfaces through NetworkManager, allowing users to configure networks in their preferred way. ...

Kubernetes is a container orchestration platform that Google open-sourced in 2014. It is now managed by CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation) and has become the de facto standard for automating the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. Production environments configure multi-node clusters for high availability, but single-node clusters are sufficient for development, testing, and learning purposes. This guide covers the entire process of building a single-node Kubernetes cluster using kubeadm on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. ...

Vim, which stands for Vi IMproved, was developed by Bram Moolenaar in 1991 as an extended and improved version of the vi editor that Bill Joy created for BSD Unix in 1976. It adds modern features like syntax highlighting, multiple undo, plugin support, and split windows while preserving vi’s core philosophy of modal editing, enabling extremely fast editing using only the keyboard. Vim comes pre-installed on nearly all Unix-like systems, making it essential for server management. It enables powerful editing without GUI editors in SSH environments, and its value is supported by nearly 50 years of accumulated community knowledge and a robust plugin ecosystem. ...

Linux container technology has steadily evolved since the first introduction of mount namespace in kernel 2.4.19 in 2002 to become a core foundation of modern cloud infrastructure, with Namespaces handling process isolation and Cgroups (Control Groups) handling resource control at its center. All container runtimes including Docker, Kubernetes, and Podman leverage these two kernel features to provide isolation environments that are much lighter and faster than virtual machines, and understanding them is the first step to deeply grasping container technology. ...