C a programming language designed by Dennis Ritchie during the early 1970s
and immediately used to reimplement Unix; so called because many features
derived from an earlier compiler named `B' in commemoration of its parent,
BCPL
C Shell A Linux shell written to look sort of like the C programming language. It
prompts you with %. Its program name is csh
C++ Designed by Bjarne Stroustrup of AT&T Bell Labs as a successor to C. Now
one of the languages of choice
cache A small fast memory holding recently accessed data, designed to speed up
subsequent access to the same data. Most often applied to processor-memory
access but also used for a local copy of data accessible over a network etc
cal Displays a simple calendar. If arguments are not specified, the current
month is displayed.
Camel Book The Universally recognized nickname for the book "Programming Perl", by
Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz, O'Reilly and Associates 1991, ISBN
0-937175-64-1
cat concatenate files and print on the standard output
cd change directory - ; cd .. moves you backwards to the next higher
subdirectory level; cd / moves you to the highest directory level
CD-DA Compact disc digital audio - a standard that allows for up to 74 minutes
of digital sound that's transferred at 150 kilobytes per second (K/sec)
CGI Common Gateway Interface is the programming interface between the system
holding the data (in our case an SQL-based system) and the network protocol
(HTML, of course)
CGM A non-proprietary vector graphics file format
CHAP Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol - used to verify a user's name
and password for PPP Internet connections. It is more secure than the other
main authentication protocol (PAP)
checksum A number computed by adding together all the characters from an entire
file in a special mathematical way. It is useful for ensuring a file has been
transferred correctly
chgrp Changes the group ownership of each given file to group, which can
be either a group name or a numeric group ID.
child process A process created by another process (the parent process). Each process
may create many child processes but will have only one parent process, except
for the very first process which has no parent. The first process, called init
in Linux, is started by the kernel at boot time and never terminates
chmod changes the permissions for a file; permissions should include a letter
designating who gets permissions (u for the user, g for the group, o for
others, or a for all) followed by a + or - (to give or take away the
permission) followed by the kind of permission (r for read access, w for write
access, x for execute if the file is a program or script)
chown changes the user and/or group ownership of each given file as specified by
the first non-option argument as follows
chroot Makes the root directory (/) become something other than its default for
the lifetime of the current process. It can only be run by privileged users
and is used to give a process (commonly a network server such as FTP or HTTP)
access to a restricted portion of the file system
CHS stands for Cylinder/Head/Sector
CIFS Common Internet File System: a protocol that defines a standard for remote
file access using millions of computers at a time
client A machine that requests resources from other machines (servers). A client
application, e.g. the popular email client elm, is a program that makes
requests on other applications for information.
client-server A common form of distributed system in which software is split between
server tasks and client tasks. A client sends requests to a server, according
to some protocol, asking for information or action, and the server responds
CLU Command Line Utility: a program that can be executed from the command
prompt. Examples of command line utilities in Linux are ls, dd, tar and gzip.
Cluster Range from a conventional network of workstations (NOW) to essentially
custom parallel machines that just happen to use Linux PCs as processor nodes
COBOL COmmon Business-Oriented Language - A weak, verbose, and flabby language
used by card wallopers to do boring mindless things on dinosaur mainframes
COLA stands for comp.os.linux.announce - a moderated linux newsgroup for
announcing linux related material
command In a Linux-based network, a Linux system that uses the file systems
provided by another Linux system. In the X window system, it is an application
program which depends on the display serve
command line interface A means of communication between a program and its user, based solely on
textual input and output. Commands are input with the help of a keyboard or
similar device and are interpreted and executed by the program. Results are
output as text or graphics to the terminal
compile To turn a program from source code into an executable machine code file
Compiled language Get translated into runnable files of binary machine code by a special
program called (logically enough) a compiler. Once the binary has been
generated, you can run it directly without looking at the source code again.
compiler A computer program that translates high-level programs, called source
files, into low-level programs, called object files
Compression The compacting of files to save storage space and reduce transfer time.
Compression uses algorithms such as Lempel-Ziv, LZW and Huffman coding
compression methods There are two types: With lossless compression none of the original
information is lost. Generally such compression can reduce the file size by
about 50%. A popular lossless compression for graphics files is .tga (Targa)
or for data .gz and .zip. The other compression method is lossy compression
where some of the original information is lost. Lossy compression methods can
reduce the file size often by 300% but are unsuitable in many situations. They
are particularly useful for the compression of graphic files with JPEG
compression being the most popular, especially as they help to reduce
bandwidth.
concatenate To join two or more files or segments of text to form a single unit. The
cat command, which is an abbreviation of this word, concatenates files
console A computer system's main terminal, from which system administration is
performed. In Linux it is identified by the device file /dev/console.
cooked mode A mode in which input is accepted command line by command line rather than
character by character. Cooked mode, the default for the Linux system, is the
opposite of raw mode
cookie A handle, transaction ID, or other token of agreement between cooperating
programs
CORBA an architecture and specification for creating, distributing, and managing
distributed program objects in a network
core dump a copy of the contents of core, produced when a process is aborted by
certain kinds of internal error. It is useful to determine the nature of a
program crash
Cox, Alan An important developer of the Linux kernel including developing
Linux networking, SMP. Other projects he has worked on include Linux/SGI,
Linux/Mac68K, Linux/8086 ports, TV card drivers and Linux sound.
cp copy files and directories
CPU Central Processing Unit: the main processor in a computer
cron A Linux daemon that periodically checks the contents of a file called /var/lib/crontab
and carries out any tasks due to be performed.
crontab A short name for file /var/lib/crontab, which contains a list of Linux
commands to be performed at specific times. A system administrator can use
crontab as an automatic timer to trigger the initiation of important jobs
Cryptography The study of codes, cryptography refers to the making and breaking of
algorithms to conceal or otherwise encrypt information. One of the most
popular internet encryption schemes is PGP
ctime Unix jargon for "the time a file's status last changed". (cf. atime, mtime)
cursor Normally a block character which marks the place for input on a computer
screen.
CVS Concurrent Versions System: the dominant open-source network-transparent
version control system
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Last Updated Saturday, October 29 2005 @ 03:11 AM EDT
