Glossary

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• Relevant to all editions of PCLinuxOS.

This page is self explanatory.

Introduction

Here’s a glossary of common Linux terms and concepts, which can help you better understand the Linux operating system and its ecosystem. Linux can be vast and complex, but understanding these terms will give you a strong foundation.

1

• 404 Error - File not found error.
• 802.11bg/n - A standard for wireless area networks (WANs) that offers transmission over short distances at up to 54 megabits per second (Mbps), compared with the 11 Mbps theoretical maximum with the earlier 802.11b standard.

A

• Access Point - An access point provides wireless access to a network. Devices connected to an access point can communicate with other devices on the network.
• ActiveX - This Microsoft-based technology was built to link desktop applications to the World Wide Web.
• Address Bar - An address bar (also location bar or URL bar) is a widget in a web browser that either reflects the current URL or accepts typing-in a target URL.
• Adware - Adware is free software that is supported by advertisements. Common adware programs are toolbars that sit on your desktop or * Affiliate Website affiliates are what drive Internet marketing. Companies run affiliate programs to generate leads and sales from other Websites.
• Alias - A shortcut or an alternate name for a command or a series of commands in the shell.
• Apache - The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache, is web server software notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. Since April 1996 Apache has been the most popular HTTP server software in use.
• Applet - A Java program that can be embedded in a Web page.
• APT (Advanced Package Tool): A package management system used by Debian-based distributions (e.g., Ubuntu) to install, update, and manage software packages.
• Arch - A Linux distribution known for its simplicity, customization, and rolling release model.
• Archive - An archive contains multiple files and/or folders within a single file.
• ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange): A character encoding standard for representing text in computers.
• ASP - Active Server Page or Application Service Provider
• ATM - Asynchronous Transfer Mode
• Autoresponder - An autoresponder is a program or script on a mail server that automatically replies to e-mails.
• Avatar - An avatar is an online character that represents a person. For example, games like World of Warcraft and the Sims.

B

• Backbone - The Internet backbone refers to the principal data routes between large, strategically interconnected networks and core routers in the Internet.
• Backlink - this is a link coming from another website back to your own, also called inward or inbound links. Some Search Engines use backlinks as an indicator of the popularity of a site.
• Banner Ad - A web banner or banner ad is a form of advertising on the World Wide Web. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page.
• Bash (Bourne Again Shell): The default shell in many Linux distributions, used to interact with the system through command-line input.
• Banner Ad - A web banner or banner ad is a form of advertising on the World Wide Web. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page.
• Bcc - Blind Carbon Copy
• BIND - (The Berkeley Internet Name Domain) a network service that enables clients to name resources or objects and share this information with other objects in the network. A program that changes IP number to names and names to IP numbers. Example: google.com their IP number 74.125.127.104
• BitTorrent - BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol used for distributing large amounts of data. BitTorrent is one of the most common protocols for transferring large files
• Blog - A blog (a contraction of the term "web log") is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.
• Bookmark - Using a World Wide Web browser, a bookmark is a saved link to a Web page that has been added to a list of saved links.
• Bootloader - Software responsible for booting the Linux kernel and operating system (e.g., GRUB, LILO).
• Botnet - The word BOTNET is short for the combination of the word robot and network. The term often applies to groups of computer systems that have had malicious software installed by worms, Trojan horses or other malicious software that allows the "botnet herder" or botnet's originator to control the group remotely.
• Bounce - When an e-mail message cannot get to its recipient for some reason, it is returned or bounced to the sender, with an error message informing the user that it was not sent.
• Broadband - Broadband in telecommunications refers to a signaling method that includes or handles a relatively wide range (or band) of frequencies, which may be divided into channels or frequency bins. Broadband is always a relative term, understood according to its context. IE: DSL, Cable, Wireless
• BSOD - aka Blue Screen Of Death A famous fatal-error message that occurs in Windows operating systems. It is a blue screen that interrupts your computer, indicating a fatal error in your operating system.
• Btrfs (B-tree File System): A modern copy-on-write (CoW) filesystem with features like snapshots, RAID support, and improved fault tolerance.

C

• Captcha - A CAPTCHA or Captcha is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer.
• Cc - Carbon Copy
• Certificate - A certificate is a mechanism used to verify an identity on a computer and/or over a computer network. You might call it a "digital identity".
• CGI - Common Gateway Interface - A standard script for running programs on a server from a Web page. CGI programs (also called scripts) can be run independently and were designed to be external so they can run under various (possibly different) servers interchangeably.
• Chmod - A command to change the file permissions (read, write, execute) of a file or directory.
• Chown - A command to change to change the owner of a file or directory.
• CLI (Command Line Interface): A text-based interface used to interact with the system through commands, as opposed to a GUI (Graphical User Interface).
• Client - A client is a computer program that depends upon another program to function.
• Client-Side - A technology or program that runs on your desktop computer (as opposed to running on a server). Example: Java or JavaScript
• Cloud Computing - Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. It is sold on demand, typically by the minute or the hour; it is elastic -- a user can have as much or as little of a service as they want at any given time; and the service is fully managed by the provider.
• Co-Location - aka colo - A facility that offer customers a secure place to physically house their hardware and equipment (as opposed to keeping it in their house, office or warehouse).
• Command Line - The location where a programmer enters commands to tell a Unix host system what he or she wants it to do. In DOS, the command line is the text you type after the prompt.
• Command Line Weenie - a.k.a. command liner. A geek who prefers using the command line instead of a mouse.
• Cookie - A cookie, also known as a web cookie, browser cookie, and HTTP cookie, is a piece of text stored on a user's computer by their web browser. It is information that a Web site puts on your hard disk so that it can remember something about you at a later time.
• Compiler - A program that reads statements written in a human-readable programming language and translates them into a machine-readable program.
• CPA - Cost Per Action
• CPC - Cost Per Click
• CPL - Cost Per Lead
• CPM - Cost Per 1,000 Impressions
• CP/M - CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers) is an operating system originally created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc.
• CRM - Customer Relationship Management
• Cron - A time-based job scheduling service in Linux that allows users to run scripts or commands at specified times.
• Cross-Browser - Cross-browser refers to the ability for a website, web application, HTML construct or client-side script to support all the web browsers.
• CSS - Cascading Style Sheet
• CTR - Click-Through Rate
• Cyberbullying - Cyberbullying "involves the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others.
• Cyberspace - a computer network consisting of a worldwide network of computer networks that use the TCP/IP network protocols to facilitate data transmission.
• Cybersquatter - Cybersquatting refers to using, trafficking in or registering a domain name with the intention of taking advantage of the popularity of another company'strademark. These cybersquatters generally register these domains before the target company, thus forcing the latter to buy the domain from them at a higher price.

D

• Daemon - A background process that runs continuously, waiting to perform certain tasks (e.g., sshd, httpd).
• Debian - A popular and stable Linux distribution, which serves as the base for many other distributions like Ubuntu.
• Desktop Environment (DE) -: A graphical interface for the Linux operating system, which includes components like a file manager, window manager, and panels (e.g., GNOME, KDE, Xfce).
• DHCP - Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
• Dial-up - Dial-up is a form of Internet access that uses telephone lines.
• Distro - Short for "distribution," referring to the various versions or flavors of Linux, such as Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, etc.
• DNS (Domain Name System) - A system that translates domain names (like www.example.com) into IP addresses.
• DNS Record - DNS records, (or Resource Records) are stored in the zone file for a domain name and are used for translating domain names to IP addresses.
• Domain Name - A domain name is a unique address on the Internet. If a domain name is not currently registered, you can register the domain name with an approved domain name registrar, which will give you rights to that particular domain until such time as the domain name registration expires, is cancelled, or is transferred to another domain name registrant.
• Domain Suffix - A domain suffix is the last part of a domain name and is often referred to as a "top-level domain" or TLD. Popular domain suffixes include ".com," ".net," and ".org," but there are dozens of domain suffixes approved by ICANN.
• Download - A download is a computer file or set of files which is designed to be transferred from a server to an individual user.
• Dynamic IP - An IP address that changes every time you log on to the Internet.
• Dynamic Website - a dynamic website provides response according to user's request. That is a dynamic wesite creates web pages at run time and provides dynamic content to the user. Whereas a static website is one that always provides same pages to all the users. It consists of pages that have predifined content.

E

• E-commerce - E-commerce, EC (electronic commerce) is the buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet, especially the World Wide Web.
• E-mail - Electronic Mail. It's hard to remember what our lives were like without e-mail.
• E-mail Bankruptcy - Email Bankruptcy is a term used to identify or explain a decision to close an e-mail account due to an overwhelming receipt of garbage messages.
• EDI - Electronic Data Interchange
• Emacs - A highly customizable text editor available on Linux.
• Emoticon - a representation of a facial expression (as a smile or frown) created by typing a sequence of characters in sending email, chatting, and text messages.
• Encryption - The process of converting data into a coded form to prevent unauthorized access.
• Ext4 (Extended File System 4) - A popular journaling filesystem used by many Linux distributions for its efficiency and reliability.
• Extranet - An extranet is a private network that uses Internet protocols, network connectivity. An extranet can be viewed as part of a company's intranet.

F

• Facebook - is a social network service and website.
• Filesystem - The way data is stored and organized on disk (e.g., ext4, Btrfs, XFS, FAT32).
• Firewall - A security system that controls incoming and outgoing network traffic based on predetermined security rules.
• FiOS - Fiber Optic Service
• FHS (Filesystem Hierarchy Standard) - A standard that defines the directory structure and directory contents in Linux distributions.
• Flaming - Flaming, also known as bashing, is hostile and insulting interaction between Internet users
• Flash - Flash is a vector animation (read about vector animation software) software, originally designed to create animations for display on web pages.
• FTP - File Transfer Protocol

G

• Gateway - A gateway is a network node that allows you to gain entrance into a network and vice versa.
• Git - A distributed version control system used to track changes in source code during software development.
• GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment) - A popular desktop environment known for its simplicity and ease of use.
• Google - Google is the world's largest search engine.
• Gopher - The Gopher protocol /ˈɡoʊfər/ is a TCP/IP Application layer protocol designed for distributing, searching, and retrieving documents over the Internet.
• Grsync = Is a graphical front-end for the rsync program.
• GRUB (GRand Unified Bootloader) - The bootloader used by most Linux systems to load the kernel and start the operating system.
• GUI (Graphical User Interface) - is a visual way of interacting with a computer system, allowing users to perform tasks using graphical elements like windows, icons, and buttons rather than text-based commands.

H

• Handle - The handle, or username, you choose will identify you to other members of our website.
• Hit - A hit is a request to a web server for a file (web page, image, JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheet, etc.).
• Home Directory - A personal directory assigned to each user in a Linux system, typically `/home/username`, where users can store their personal files.
• Home Page - A home page or homepage has various related meanings to do with web sites: It most often refers to the initial or main web page of a web site.
• Hostname - The name assigned to a computer in a network, used to identify it.
• HTML - Hyper-Text Markup Language
• HTTP - HyperText Transfer Protocol
• HTTPS - HyperText Transport Protocol Secure
• Hyperlink - a link from a hypertext file to another location or file; typically activated by clicking on a highlighted word or icon at a particular location.
• Hypermedia - a multimedia system in which related items of information are connected and can be presented together.
• Hypertext - Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence.

I

• ICANN - Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers
• ICF - Internet Connection Firewall
• ICMP - Internet Control Message Protocol
• ICQ - ICQ is a popular instant messaging computer program, which was first developed by the Israeli company Mirabilis, now owned by AOL.
• ICS - Internet Connection Sharing
• ICT - Information and Communication Technologies
• 'IM - Instant Message
• Impression - An impression is defined as the point in which an ad is viewed once by a visitor, or displayed once on a web page.
• Inbox - This is the area on you computers email program that stores the emails sent to you.
• Init System - The first process started by the Linux kernel during boot. Common init systems include Systemd, SysVinit, and Upstart.
• Inode - A data structure in a filesystem that stores information about a file or directory, excluding its name or actual data.
• Internet - The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users.
• InterNIC - Internet Network Information Center
• IP - Internet Protocol
• IP Address - A unique string of numbers assigned to a device in a network, allowing it to communicate with other devices.
• IPv4 - Internet Protocol version four, or IPv4, is a system of addresses used to identify devices on a network.
• IPv6 - Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the next-generation Internet Protocol version designated as the successor to IPv4. IPv6 is designed to solve the problems of IPv4. It does so by creating a new version of the protocol which serves the function of IPv4, but without the same limitations of IPv4.
• IRC - Internet Relay Chat
• iSCSI - Internet Small Computer Systems Interface
• ISDN - Integrated Services Digital Network
• ISP - Internet Service Provider

J

• Journaling Filesystem: A filesystem that logs changes before committing them to disk, helping to prevent corruption in the event of a crash (e.g., ext4, XFS).
• JSON (JavaScript Object Notation): A lightweight data-interchange format often used in web applications and APIs.

K

• Kernel: The core of the Linux operating system, responsible for managing hardware resources and system calls.
• KDE (K Desktop Environment): A popular and customizable desktop environment for Linux.

L

• LAMP Stack: A group of open-source software used to run websites: Linux (OS), Apache (web server), MySQL/MariaDB (database), and PHP (programming language).
• LILO (Linux Loader): A legacy bootloader, now largely replaced by GRUB.
• Linux: A family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel.
• LVM (Logical Volume Manager): A system for managing disk drives and partitions, allowing for resizing and moving partitions without unmounting them.

M

• Man Pages: The manual pages for Linux commands and utilities, accessible using the `man` command.
• Mount: The process of making a filesystem accessible at a certain point in the directory tree.
• Mkdir: (Make Directory) The mkdir command in Linux creates new directories.
• Makefile: A file used by the `make` utility to compile and build programs.

N

• Nano: Nano is a popular and user-friendly command line text editor available on Unix-based systems.
• Nginx: A lightweight, high-performance web server and reverse proxy server.
• NFS (Network File System): A protocol that allows file access over a network, making it possible for a Linux system to mount directories from another system.
• NTFS (New Technology File System): is a file system that stores and organizes files on a hard disk or solid-state drive (SSD). It's the default file system for Windows operating systems. Modern Linux can read/write NTFS drives without problem.

O

• Open Source: Software whose source code is freely available to the public for use, modification, and distribution.
• Orphaned Package: A package that was installed as a dependency but no longer has any associated packages depending on it.

P

• Package Manager: A tool used to install, update, and remove software packages (e.g., `apt` in Debian-based distros, `dnf` in Fedora, `pacman` in Arch).
• PCLinuxOS or PCLOS: is a rolling release Linux distribution for x86-64 computers, with KDE Plasma, MATE, and XFCE as its default user interfaces. It is a primarily FOSS operating system for personal computers aimed at ease of use.
• Pico (Pine Composer): is a simple command line text editor for GNU/Linux systems that's often used for simple documents.
• PID (Process ID): A unique number assigned to each running process.
• Permissions: Rules that determine who can read, write, or execute a file or directory in Linux (`chmod` can modify permissions).
• PWD: The pwd command in Linux stands for "Print Working Directory" and is used to display the full path of the current directory.

Q

• Quota: A system for limiting the amount of disk space or number of files a user or group can use.

R

• Root: The administrative user in Linux, with unrestricted access to all files and commands on the system.
• Repository: A storage location from which software packages are retrieved and installed on a system.
• Rsync: Rsync, or remote sync, is a command-line tool in Linux that allows users to transfer and synchronize files between systems:
  • Backups: Rsync is a popular option for backing up critical data.
  • File syncing: Rsync can keep files in sync across multiple locations.
  • Bandwidth efficiency: Rsync is bandwidth-efficient because it only sends the differences between the source and destination files.

S

• Shell: A command-line interpreter that allows users to interact with the operating system (e.g., Bash, Zsh, Fish).
• SSH (Secure Shell): A protocol for securely accessing and managing remote systems over a network.
• Swap Space: Disk space used as virtual memory when physical RAM is full.
• Synaptic: Synaptic is a graphical user interface (GUI) for package management in Linux that allows users to install, remove, and upgrade software packages.
• Systemd: A modern init system and service manager for Linux, responsible for booting the system and managing services.

T

• TAR: A file archiving tool (`tar`), often used to package multiple files into a single archive.
• Terminal: A command-line interface for interacting with the system, either through a physical terminal or terminal emulator.
• TTY (TeleTYpewriter): A terminal interface used in Linux to communicate with the system, typically accessed using Ctrl + Alt + F1 through F7.

U

• Umount: A command used to unmount a mounted filesystem.
• Ubuntu: A popular Linux distribution based on Debian, known for its user-friendliness and wide hardware support.
• Untar: The untar command extracts the contents of a tar file, also known as a tarball. The basic syntax for the untar command is tar -xvf file_name.tar
• User: Any individual account on a Linux system with specific permissions and access controls.

V

• VI / Vim: A highly configurable text editor commonly used in the terminal.
• Virtual Machine (VM): An emulated system running inside another physical machine, often used to run multiple operating systems concurrently.

W

• W3C - World Wide Web Consortium - An organization that exists to realize the full potential of the Web, it is a special interest group comprised of programmers, Web developers, execs in the industry, and users who help define specifications for the development of Web technology.
• WAIS - Wide Area Information Server
• WAN- Wide Area Network - A network that uses high-speed, long-distance communications cables or satellites to connect computers over distances greater than those traversed by LANs (which range about two miles). The Internet itself is considered a WAN.
• Wayland - A newer display server protocol intended to replace the X Window System (X11) for Linux desktop environments.
• Web 2.0 - Web 2.0 is term that was introduced in 2004 and refers to the second generation of the World Wide Web.
• Web Forum - Sometimes called a bulletin board or message board, a Web forum is an online center for ongoing, in-depth discussions of specific topics and issues. It originated as the modern equivalent of a traditional bulletin board, and a technological evolution of the dialup bulletin board system.
• 'Web Host - In order to publish a website online, you need a Web host. The Web host stores all the pages of your website and makes them available to computers connected to the Internet.
• Web Hosting - The business of providing the equipment and services required to host and maintain files for one or more Web sites and to provide fast Internet connections to those sites. It can include virtual/shared, or dedicated.
• Webmail - There are two primary ways of checking your e-mail – using an e-mail program like Microsoft Outlook or with a eb-based interface called webmail. When you check or send e-mail via the Web, you are using webmail.
• Webmaster - The webmaster is the person in charge of maintaining a Web site.
• Web Page - A single HTML file (static or generated on the fly) on the Internet, often hyperlinked to others, and intended to be viewed with a web browser.
• Web Ring - A webring (or web ring) is a collection of websites linked together in a circular structure, and usually organized around a specific theme.
• Web Server - A Web server is a computer program that delivers (serves) content, such as Web pages, using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), over the World Wide Web.
• Web Space - The amount of space set aside on a server for a Web site. Most ISPs allocate free Web space for their users. The minimum amount offered is usually 10 megabytes, which is ample space for most people's needs.
• Website - A website, or Web site, is not the same thing as a Web page. Though the two terms are often used interchangeably, they should not be. So what's the difference? To put it simply, a Web site is a collection of Web pages.
• Web Crawler - One of the original popular search engines on the Web. It was one of the first indexes of World Wide Web pages by title and URL.
• Webmaster - A commonly used term that can refer to a variety of individuals involved with the creation or management of a Web site. Most correctly, a Webmaster is the person who maintains, runs, or "watches over" the content and functionality of a Web site.
• Webmistress - A female Webmaster - see the term Webmaster above.
• Wget - A command-line utility used to download files from the web.
• WHOIS - This is an Internet service that finds information about a domain name or IP address.
• WiFi - A high-speed wireless networking standard (at 11Mbps and increasing to 20Mbps), it is a leading RF technology backed by Apple and 3Com. Dubbed "Wi-Fi" (because that's easier to remember than 802.11a/b/g/n). Wi-Fi wireless networks originally came in two speeds: "b" 11Mbps (the first version to gain public acceptance) and "g" 54Mbps (which is faster and backwards compatible with b).
• Wiki - A wiki is a Web site that allows users to add and update content on the site using their own Web browser.
• WiMax - (802.16e) Unlike Wi-Fi, which covers an area of a few hundred feet, WiMax networks are capable of extending over several square miles.
• WWW - World Wide Web (web 1.0) - You're in it ;-) "The Web," as it is more commonly called, can be described as a collection of graphical pages on the Internet that can be read and interacted with by computer.
• 'WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get (pronounced: whiz-ee-wig) An acronym for a technology that allows you to view or print a document exactly as it looks.

X

• XHTML - Extensible Hypertext Markup Language
• X11 - A display server protocol that provides the graphical interface for Linux systems.
• X Windows System - A networked windowing system developed first by MIT and now by the X Consortium. It is commonly used on Unix (and VMS systems).
• XModem - A protocol for transferring files during direct dial-up communications. Developed by Ward Christensen in 1977, Xmodem has basic error checking to ensure that information isn't lost or corrupted during transfer.

Y

• Yahoo! - Yahoo! is an Internet portal that incorporates a search engine and a directory of World Wide Web sites organized in a hierarchy of topic categories.
• YouTube - YouTube is a video sharing website on which users can upload and share videos.
• YUM (Yellowdog Updater Modified) - A package manager used by older versions of Fedora and CentOS, replaced by `dnf` in newer versions.

Z

• ZFS (Zettabyte File System) - A highly advanced filesystem known for its scalability, data integrity features, and support for large storage systems.
• Zombie - Originally it referred to an abandoned Web site that remains online (such as a ghost site or an orphan annie). The definition of "zombie" has been extended to include a PC that has received either a virus or a Trojan program which causes it to be used as a spam generator without the user's knowledge.
• Zone File - A zone file is a text file that describes a portion of the Domain Name System (DNS) called a DNS zone. A zone contains information that defines mappings between domain names and IP addresses and other resources, organized in form of resource records
• Zypper: The command-line package manager used by openSUSE.