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Tuning and Customizing a Linux System

Daniel L. Morrill

Apress™

Copyright © 2002 Daniel L. Morrill

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.

1-893115-27-5

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To Aimee Morgan, who has always wanted to see her name in a bookstore.
This will have to do … for now.

About the Author

Dan Morrill holds a master's degree in computer science and currently works as a researcher at GE's Global Research Center in upstate New York. He is skilled in a wide variety of software development areas, from real-time and embedded systems development, to desktop applications, to web infrastructure and applications. He has been using Unix systems since 1994 and has used Linux systems exclusively since 1998. Before being Enlightened, he used other operating systems, including IBM's OS/2, Microsoft's Windows, and various Unix platforms.

Dan lives in a modest house filled with far too many toys for his own good and delights in tinkering with them all. Sometimes they even survive.

About the Technical Reviewer

Douglas Kilpatrick has been working with Unix systems since 1992 and Linux systems since 1993. While he does have a beard, he offically denies rumors that he wears suspenders. Douglas has been working in the field of computer security for the last 4 years and has taken to random fits of maniacal laughter when the subject is raised.

Acknowledgments

First, I must thank the staff at Apress, especially the editors, whose patience and professionalism are like unto angels. If true quality takes time, this had better be the best book ever written, because they certainly waited long enough.

I am also indebted to my parents, Kevin and Carolyn Morrill, who set the stage for that fateful day when the busy glow of my own computer monitor first lit upon my face. Thanks for the support, then and since.

Sometimes it seems as if much of my success was inspired by others whose talent so vastly surpassed mine. Without these people and the professional milestones to which they drove me, this book would not exist, and so I must thank: Vincent Kane, for shaming me into learning programming; Chris "Hocy" Ho, for shaming me into learning Slackware; Douglas Kilpatrick, for shaming me into learning C; Richard Arthur, for shaming me into learning software engineering; David Czarnecki, for shaming me into starting a book; and Aimee Morgan, for shaming me into completing it.

And finally, to my colleagues at GE—both current and former—I can say only this: YLB. YPM.