Hacker’s Compendium

Date:

Nov 07, 2025

Author:

Mark Galassi

Contents:

• 1. Motivation and plan of the work
  • 1.1. What is a hacker?
• 2. Overall principles
  • 2.1. The constant mantra: automation
  • 2.2. When should you automate?
  • 2.3. Mixing user-level and programming
  • 2.4. Customizing your environment
  • 2.5. The hacker and the sysadmin
  • 2.6. A collection of tips from experienced hackers
• 3. Dos and don’ts
• 4. Your own rabbit hole
  • 4.1. One personal experience
  • 4.2. Customizing your desktop for power and beauty
• 5. Favorite shell techniques
  • 5.1. Motivation
  • 5.2. What is the shell?
  • 5.3. A basic set of shell commands you should always know
  • 5.4. A cookbook
  • 5.5. A smattering of regular expressions
  • 5.6. Longer pipelines
  • 5.7. X window system techniques
  • 5.8. Curl and wget recipes
  • 5.9. A bit of fun
• 6. Games and diversions
  • 6.1. Motivation
  • 6.2. Simple diversions and command-line fu
  • 6.3. Packages that offer many games
  • 6.4. Games in emacs
  • 6.5. Character graphics with curses
  • 6.6. Graphical games
  • 6.7. Other resources
• 7. Your graphical environment
  • 7.1. Motivation and plan
  • 7.2. The pillars of X11
  • 7.3. Window focus
  • 7.4. Keyboard behavior
  • 7.5. Trying at least one other desktop environment
  • 7.6. Compositing and trying a couple of window managers
  • 7.7. Trying other desktop environments
• 8. Compiling and running basics
  • 8.1. Motivation and plan
  • 8.2. Python
  • 8.3. C
  • 8.4. C: scope and resolving external variables
• 9. Probing memory on a running Linux system
  • 9.1. Motivation and plan
  • 9.2. Concepts
  • 9.3. Simplest programs to look at memory concepts
  • 9.4. Using memory incorrectly
  • 9.5. Lesson: preparing the programs
  • 9.6. Lesson: real time monitoring of memory with top
  • 9.7. Long term monitoring of memory with vmstat
  • 9.8. Advanced memory monitoring with valgrind and massif
  • 9.9. Further resources
• 10. Pointers
  • 10.1. Motivation and plan
  • 10.2. What are pointers?
  • 10.3. Basic pointer code: strings and memory copy
  • 10.4. Linked lists
  • 10.5. A review of bitwise operators
  • 10.6. Simulating a hardware device
• 11. C++ Thoughts and resources
  • 11.1. Useful blogs and resources
  • 11.2. Binary compatibility issues
  • 11.3. Exception handling
• 12. Parallel processing
  • 12.1. Motivation and plan
  • 12.2. Concepts
  • 12.3. Python multithreading library
• 13. Fun and instructive programs
  • 13.1. Memory profiling with mbw
• 14. Sharing on the net
  • 14.1. Motivation and plan
  • 14.2. Static files
  • 14.3. Content management systems
  • 14.4. Sharing the vieweing of active terminals
  • 14.5. Sharing one’s desktop
• 15. Packaging - making debian packages
• 16. C++ notes
  • 16.1. How C++ fits into the landscape of programming
  • 16.2. How to avoid using C++
  • 16.3. Best practices in C++
  • 16.4. Source indenters
  • 16.5. Examples of specific questions
  • 16.6. Resources

Indices and tables

• Index

• Module Index

• Search Page