Questions tagged [terminology]
For questions about words/terms that are specific to Unix and/or Linux.
194 questions
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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 ...
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3
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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
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1
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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
...
6
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2
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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 ...
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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
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3
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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 ...
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1
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154
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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) ...
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2
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53
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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 ...
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1
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106
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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 ...
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1
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84
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'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 ...
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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
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354
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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 ...
4
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1
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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 ...
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2
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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.
...
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1
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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 ...