Glossary

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To clarify inevitable (nearly always) Unix jargon that comes up.

  • Directory: folder
  • Subdirectory: sub folder, i.e. a directory with a directory.
  • Execute: run, launch
  • Process: task (usually small)
  • Thread: process
  • CPU, hardware processor.
  • Recursion: run a task for every depth a certain structure (i.e. a directory) holds.
  • Console: terminal, command-line screen.
  • Shell: the program responsible for accepting your typing and sending output back
  • Prompt: The shell's entry area, characters that appear before blinking cursor: the beginning of the command line
  • MS: Microsoft
  • Unix: Older closed versions of Linux,mostly similar, differen only in smaller details
  • Linux: Practically the same as Unix, except open-source
  • Linux distribution: Red Hat, Ubuntu, Debian, SuSE,
  • GUI: Graphical User Interface: added pixel-based layer to make things easier and look nicer.
  • X-Windows, GUI for Unix/Linux
  • X11: X-Windows
  • Kill: to stop a process
  • | : bar, vertical bar, pipe .. this is the pipe operator, permits output of one command go into another