C8

Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI)

A BIOS component that allows operating systems to interface directly to hardware components or provide power management.

daemon

A Linux system process that provides a system service.

service unit

A Systemd term that is used to describe a daemon.

target unit

A Systemd term that is used to describe the number and type of daemons running on a Linux system. It is functionally equivalent to the UNIX SysV term runlevel.

init command

A UNIX SysV command used to change the operating system from one runlevel to another.

telinit command

A UNIX SysV command used to change the operating system from one runlevel to another.

runlevel

A UNIX SysV term that defines a certain type and number of daemons on a Linux system.

Wayland compositor

A Window manager that is compatible with Wayland.

Unity

A alternatives to the GNOME Shell developed to provide different features, such as mobile-focused characteristics.

UTF-8

A character set that allows software to use one to four 8-bit bytes to represent the characters defined by Unicode.

American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII)

A character set used on early computers of the 1960s that was specific to English characters and thus had no international localization options. It was extended to include some other languages with the introduction of the ISO-8859 standard, but still lacked many of the extended characters used by these languages.

update-rc.d command

A command that can be used to configure UNIX SysV daemon startup by runlevel on Ubuntu Linux systems.

chkconfig command

A command that can be used to configure UNIX SysV daemon startup by runlevel.

restart command

A command that can be used to manually restart an upstart daemon.

start command

A command that can be used to manually start an upstart daemon.

systemctl command

A command that can be used to manually start, stop and restart Systemd daemons, as well as configure Systemd daemon startup during the system initialization process.

service command

A command that can be used to manually start, stop, and restart UNIX SysV daemons.

stop command

A command that can be used to manually stop an upstart daemon.

timedatectl command

A command that can be used to view and set both the time and time zone information on your system.

reload command

A command that reloads the configuration files for a daemon.

tzselect command

A command that will prompt you to answer a series of questions to determine the correct time zone file name.

system-config-keyboard command

A command used on Fedora Linux systems to configure a keyboard for use by X Windows.

iconv command

A command used to convert data between different character sets.

locale command

A command used to display the values for locale variables.

dracut command

A command used to edit the GRUB2 configuration file from system rescue or generate a new initramfs.

mkinitrd command

A command used to edit the GRUB2 configuration file from system rescue or generate a new initramfs.

startx command

A command used to start the Linux GUI from runlevel 3.

localectl command

A command used to view and change locale settings on your system.

systemd-analyze command

A command used to view information about Systemd units.

hwclock command

A command used to view or modify the time within the BIOS.

status command

A command used to view the status of a daemon.

GRand Unified Bootloader (GRUB)

A common boot loader used to boot a variety of different operating systems (including Linux) on a variety of different hardware platforms.

X.org

A common implementation of X Windows used in Linux distributions.

XFCE

A common lightweight desktop environment used today.

multi boot

A configuration in which two or more operating systems exist on the hard disk of a computer; the boot loader allows the user to choose which operating system to load at boot time.

K Desktop Environment (KDE)

A desktop environment created by Matthias Ettrich in 1996.

Cinnamon

A desktop environments based on GNOME that is used by the Linux Mint distribution.

MATE

A desktop environments based on GNOME, including the MATE desktop environment used by the Arch Linux.

GTK+ toolkit

A development toolkit for C programming; it is used in the GNOME desktop and the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP).

LightDM

A display manager used by Ubuntu.

secure boot

A feature in the UEFI BIOS that when enabled, the digital signature of the boot loader within the UEFI System Partition is first checked to ensure that it has not been modified by malware.

KDE Display Manager (kdm)

A graphical login screen for users that resembles the KDE desktop.

X Display Manager (xdm)

A graphical login screen.

Wayland

A new version of X Windows designed to replace X.org; it has additional security features and an architecture that makes graphical application development easier.

system initialization process

A process that executes daemons to bring the system into a usable state.

netbooting

A process whereby a computer BIOS can be configured to boot an operating system from an NFS, HTTP, or FTP server across the network, provided that the computer network interface supports the Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) standard.

GNOME Display Manager (gdm)

A program that provides a graphical login screen.

boot loader

A program used to load an operating system.

Network Time Protocol (NTP)

A protocol that allows one to obtain time from a server across a network, such as the Internet.

upstart

A recent version of the UNIX SysV system initialization process used on modern Linux distributions.

Systemd

A relatively new software framework used on Linux systems that provides a system initialization process and system management functions.

Desktop Bus (D-Bus)

A software component used to provide a mechanism that allows programs to easily communicate with one another for functions such as copy-and-paste.

initramfs

A special disk filesystem image to load modules into RAM that are needed by the Linux kernel at boot time.

Unicode

A standard that extends ASCII to allow for the representation of characters in nearly all languages used worldwide.

UNIX SysV

A system initialization process used by traditional Linux systems.

GRUB Legacy

A term that refers to the original GRUB boot loader that is not used on modern Linux systems.

kernel panic

A term used to describe the situation where invalid entries in the GRUB2 configuration file or a damaged initramfs prevent the kernel from loading successfully.

Universal Access utility

A utility used to configure assistive technologies within Fedora 28.

initstate

Also known as runlevel.

target

Also known as target unit.

GRand Unified Bootloader version 2 (GRUB2)

An enhanced version of the GRUB boot loader. It is the most common boot loader used on modern Linux systems.

ISO-8859

An extension of the ASCII character set that included some other languages; however, it still lacked many of the extended characters used by these languages.

Power On Self Test (POST)

An initial series of tests run when a computer is powered on to ensure that hardware components are functional.

runtime configuration (rc) scripts

Scripts that are used during the system initialization process to start daemons and provide system functionality.

window manager

The GUI component that is responsible for determining the appearance of the windows drawn on the screen by X Windows.

localization

The collective settings on a system that are specific to a specific region within the world.

grub2-mkconfig command

The command used to build the GRUB2 configuration file from entries within the /etc/default/grub file and /etc/grub.d directory.

runlevel command

The command used to display the current and most recent (previous) runlevel.

grub-install command

The command used to install the GRUB boot loader.

grub2-install command

The command used to install the GRUB2 boot loader.

X server

The component of X Windows that draws graphics to windows on the terminal screen.

X client

The component of X Windows that requests graphics to be drawn from the X server and displays them on the terminal screen.

X Windows

The component of the Linux GUI that displays graphics to windows on the terminal screen.

GNU Object Model Environment (GNOME)

The default desktop environment in Fedora Linux; it was created in 1997.

mutter window manager

The default window manager for the GNOME Desktop Environment in Fedora.

initialize (init) daemon

The first process started by the Linux kernel; it is responsible for starting and stopping other daemons.

locale

The format localization on most systems that includes a language, region, and character set.

GNOME Shell

The graphical interface components of GNOME 3.

active partition

The partition searched for an operating system after the MBR/GPT.

GRUB root partition

The partition that contains Stage 2.

desktop environment

The software that works with a window manager to provide a standard GUI environment that uses standard programs and development tools.

Qt toolkit

The software toolkit used with the K Desktop Environment.

K Window Manager (kwin)

The window manager that works under the KDE Desktop Environment.

epoch time

Time the Linux kernel stores as the number of seconds since January 1, 1970 UTC (the birth of UNIX).

assistive technologies

Tools used to increase accessibility.