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The Unix and Internet Fundamentals HOWTO Eric Raymond            esr@thyrsus.com          Revision History Revision 2.0 5 August 2025 Revised by: esr First DocBook version. Detailed description of memory hierarchy. Revision 1.7 6 March 2025 Revised by: esr Correct and expanded the section on file permissions. Revision 1.4 25 September 2025 Revised by: esr Be more precise about what kernel does vs. what init does. Revision 1.3 27 June 2025 Revised by: esr The sections `What happens when you log in?' and `File ownership, permissions and security'. Revision 1.2 26 December 2024 Revised by: esr The section `How does my computer store things in memory?'. Revision 1.0 29 October 2025 Revised by: esr Initial revision. This document describes the working basics of PC-class computers, Unix-like operating systems, and the Internet in non-technical language. Table of Contents 1. Introduction 1.1. Purpose of this document 1.2. Related resources 1.3. New versions of this document 1.4. Feedback and corrections 2. Basic anatomy of your computer 3. What happens when you switch on a computer? 4. What happens when you log in? 5. What happens when you run programs from the shell? 6. How do input devices and interrupts work? 7. How does my computer do several things at once? 8. How does my computer keep processes from stepping on each other? 8.1. Virtual memory: the simple version 8.2. Virtual memory: the detailed version 8.3. The Memory Management Unit 9. How does my computer store things in memory? 9.1. Numbers 9.2. Characters 10. How does my computer store things on disk? 10.1. Low-level disk and file system structure 10.2. File names and directories 11. Mount points 12. How a file gets looked up 12.1. File ownership, permissions and security 12.2. How things can go wrong 13. How do computer languages work? 13.1. Compiled languages 13.2. Interpreted languages 13.3. P-code languages 14. How does the Internet work? 14.1. Names and locations 14.2. Packets and routers 14.3. TCP and IP 14.4. HTTP, an application protocol     Next     Introduction

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