Linux definitions

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1 A
2 B
3 C
4 D
5 E
6 F
7 G
8 H
9 I
10 J
11 K
12 L
13 M
14 N
15 O
16 P
17 Q
18 R
19 S
20 T
21 U
22 V
23 W
24 X
25 Y
26 Z
27 External Links

[edit] B

buffer: a continuous grouping of bytes usually containing ASCII (characters) data.

[edit] C

Character, char: a single byte of data, usually text related.
CLI: a) Command-Line Interface - shorthand for working at a shell prompt.
b) Clemson Linux Initiative
compile: the process of converting source code into machine code to be executed.

[edit] D

daemon: a server process that runs in the background usually is refered to as a daemon

[edit] F

file descriptor fd: programming terminology used to in order to read to/write from a file on some storage media

[edit] G

group: groups allow for users to be grouped together. Users among the same group can share files
gid: The system assigns each group a group ID number. This number is used when writing files to disk (since it is more effecient to store a 4-byte number than an ASCII text group name)

[edit] K

kernel: The Operating system kernel is the software that actually controls your computer's primary functions such as I/O and how to run multiple programs. This is what Linux is.
keypair: In public keyring cryptography, there are always two keys that work together: a public and a private. This union is refered to as a keypair.

[edit] L

library: a collection of programming functions grouped together is refered to as a library. Libraries exist for an immence number of things, such as math functions, GUI functions, database functions, and many, many other things. Intended so programmers do not need to "reinvent the wheel," but rather can work on new code ideas.

[edit] M

module: When you build the kernel, you have two options: to make a module, or to build it into the kernel. Modules are best suited for things that you will not always use, so when you are not using them, you're not dedicating resources to them. At the cost of using modules, there is a small overhead.
mount: A system command that creates a more user friendly interface to a device. Mounting a hardrive will allow you see the contents of the drive as files and directories rather than raw binary.
mount point: A directory on your system that is chosen to be the base directory of a particular device's filesystem.
MUA: Mail User Agent. A mail client such as Thunderbird, Evolution, Elm, Pine, Mutt, etc.

[edit] N

ncurses: a system library which allows a text-based GUI environment at a shell. It supports windows, text, colors, and more. Many programs use ncurses.

[edit] P

pid: Each process is assigned a process ID. This makes it easy to refer to a specific process.
port: a) an action describing that a software package/application was also coded to work under a different operating system
b) On networks you can talk to many different other hosts. To distinguish the transmissions from one to another, ports are used. There are 65,536 possible ports on your computer. The first 1024 are reserved for network services, such as FTP, HTTP, and so forth.
process: A program running on your computer is called a process.

[edit] R

regular expressions regex regexp: a method to describe how to match a text string to a pattern. Some regular expressions can look rather complex (and some are) but this gives them great abilities.

a script is not translated directly into machine code before running, but rather is interpreted by a program to do specific tasks. Scripts are very convenient for doing repeatitive tasks in a file, on a group of files, or something of that nature, although that is not the extent of their power.

shell

What you're interacting with when you open up a terminal window, sign on at a command line prompt, or non-graphically remote connect to a server. Examples: Bourne Again Shell(bash), Bourne Shell(sh), C shell(csh), Turbo C Shell(tcsh), and Korn Shell(ksh).

About Unix Shell Scripts

signal: Signals are how the system or a program can communicate with another program.
socket: a connection between two hosts on a network to transmit any data. Has similar properties to a file (read/write)

[edit] T

timestamp: show the time and date that an event happened, such as last file modification, or an event in the system logs.

[edit] U

uid: the system associates a user ID number to each user. This is used when saving files to disk since a 4-byte integer is easier to save to disk (since it is more effecient to store a 4-byte number than an ASCII text name name)
user: in order to access the system, you must have a user account.