Questions tagged [terminology]
For questions about words/terms that are specific to Unix and/or Linux.
194 questions
0 votes
2 answers
133 views
Do dotfiles require the initial dot?
Is there a difference between a "dot file" and a "configuration file"? For example, I have torrc file in /opt/homebrew/etc/tor. Neither filename itself nor any of its parent ...
- 1,397
0 votes
3 answers
205 views
what is recursion when applied to the bash shell?
I keep hearing people talk about "recursion" for example, when you copy and paste a file and a directory you need to also put in the -r flag to tell the cp command to copy the directory &...
2 votes
1 answer
77 views
PEOT EOM EOT Difference
I'm a little confusing about the tape options in Unix EOM (end of mark) EOT (end of tape) PEOT (physical end of tape) As I understand EOM is the the end of last file, but I have also some free tape ...
- 14.5k
6 votes
2 answers
2k views
Is ext4 and xfs only for usage with internal file systems?
I am attempting to store some large files and I thought an encrypted ext4 partition would be excellent. However the GNOME Disk Utility appears to state ext4 as for internal disks and xfs only for ...
- 181
-3 votes
1 answer
253 views
what is a "string" in bash? [duplicate]
i keep hearing people talking about "strings"? what is a string? what are people talking about? i keep hearing "enter a string" or "if your string this" or your "...
1 vote
3 answers
2k views
Linux command vs bash command, is my understanding correct?
this question may be a bit terminological. As a new Linux learner, I find many tutorials mention Linux/bash commands. To my understanding, commands are just various programs and bash is a shell like ...
0 votes
1 answer
169 views
Confusing in status of 'fixed" and "obsolete" in debsecan of Ubuntu
May I know what are the meaning of 'fixed" and "obsolete" in debsecan of Ubuntu? output of "debsecan --suite bookworm" a) CVE-2024-xxxxx {Package Name} (fixed, obsolete) b) ...
- 9
0 votes
2 answers
70 views
Nomenclature for Application dependency
Assume that this command invokes an application from the MacOS terminal command line: /Applications/Matlab_R2020a.app/bin/matlab The terminal then is no longer able to accept commands and MATLAB is ...
- 1,532
-1 votes
1 answer
116 views
Why doesn't 'export' give the export attribute while 'set -a' does?
From man bash (GNU bash, version 5.2.21(1)-release (x86_64-pc-cygwin)): set [-abefhkmnptuvxBCEHPT] [-o option-name] [--] [-] [arg ...] -a Each variable or function that is created or modified is ...
- 757
-1 votes
1 answer
91 views
'input-file' and 'output-file' vs. 'source-file' and 'target-file' as generic names [closed]
When documenting command-line things, it is often necessary to use generic names. Sometimes I use input and output words, and they play nice: # example 1 pandoc input_file.md -o output_file.htm But ...
- 1,397
0 votes
0 answers
65 views
Name of the arrow icons that tell you there is a subdirectory in a menu?
I don't know how exactly to describe it verbally, but I just mean the white triangular arrows in this example image: In an icon theme that I'm trying to use they either don't exist or are the exact ...
7 votes
0 answers
404 views
Why is a loop device called a "loop" device?
As far as I understand, a loop device is a regular file that acts as a block device. It's used for various things like isolation in snap packages and installing ISOs over an existing filesystem. But ...
- 71
4 votes
1 answer
3k views
What is a device manager in the context of Linux?
What is a device manager in the context of Linux? That is, what is it that a device manager actually does? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udev says udev (userspace /dev) is a device manager for the ...
- 161
1 vote
2 answers
144 views
Each file gets one inode block
A question was given to us by a lecturer: How many data blocks are needed to collect all the data in an EXT4 file system using inodes if the file size is 54 KB and there is a block size of 4KB. ...
- 13
0 votes
1 answer
255 views
How to understand fontconfig output: "Pattern has 38 elts (size 48)"
When running with verbose output, and sometime even without, the first thing fontconfig writes about any font is a line like the following: Pattern has 38 elts (size 48) What do these numbers ...
- 1,015