Glossary (UWN)

guiverc · February 13, 2024, 4:38am

Glossary of Terms

The following Glossary of Terms is meant to be an information resource and reference of commonly and uncommonly used terms, formatted for use in the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, and arranged alphabetically. This list will change over time.

2FA - Two Factor Authentication.
ABI - application binary interface - the layer between user-space applications and the operating system’s kernel.
ACK - Acknowledgment.
ACPI - Advanced Configuration and Power Interface.
acpid - Advanced Configuration and Power Interface Daemon.
AGPLv3 - Affero General Public License, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License.
AHCI - Advanced Host Controller Interface.
API - Application Programming Interface.
APT - Advanced Persistent Threat.
AMA - Ask Me Anything.
ARM - Advanced Risc Machine [architecture].
BAR - Base Address Registers.
BBS - UEFI Bios Boot Specification Priorities.
BGP - Border Gateway Protocol ← looks at all of the available paths.
BIND - Berkeley Internet Name Daemon.
BIOS - Firmware controlling input and output (see UEFI for modern PCs).
BOF - Birds of a Feather - An informal discussion group, based on a shared interest, discussing without a pre-planned agenda.
BPB - BIOS Parameter Block.
BTRFS - B-Tree File System
BTS - Debian Bug Tracking System - http://bugs.debian.org/
CC - Community Council - Ubuntu Community Council
CC - Creative Commons.
CDN - Content Delivery Network - a network of servers linked together with the goal of delivering content as quickly, cheaply, reliably, and securely as possible.
CLA - Contributor License Agreement.
CLI - Command Line Interface.
CMS - Content Management System.
CoC - Code of Conduct - Ubuntu Code of Conduct v2.0 | Ubuntu
COW - Copy-On-Write mechanism in the Linux kernel.
CSR - Certificate Signing Request.
CDN - Content Delivery Network.
CVE - Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures.
DD - Debian Developer.
DE - Desktop environment ← The presentation layer that includes the desktop, toolbars, window decorations, other styling elements.
DFSG - Debian Free Software Guidelines
DHCP - Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol.
d-i - debian-installer
DIF - Debian Import Freeze - After this point, packages aren’t automatically imported from Debian when updated. Time to focus on bugfixing & integration
DIT - Directory Information Tree, for implementations of LDAP.
DIY - Do It Yourself
DMB - Developer Membership Board.
DNS - Domain Name System.
DPMS - Display Power Management Signaling.
DPMT - Debian Python Module Team - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ContributingToDebian/PythonModulesTeam
DRBD - a block device which is designed to build high availability clusters.
DRM - Direct Rendering Manager.
eMMC - Embedded Multi Media Card (Integrated Storage Device).
EOL - End Of Life.
ESM - Canonical offers paid Extended Security Maintenance support for 12.04 through the Ubuntu Advantage program. For more information, see Ubuntu Expanded Security Maintenance | Security | Ubuntu . ESM is not an Ubuntu community offering; please direct questions about it to Canonical directly. >> terminal command: ua status.
ESP - EFI System Partition.
EVDO - Evolution-Data Optimized wireless communication.
FF - Feature Freeze.
FFe - Feature Freeze exception.
FLOSS - Free Libre Open Source Software.
FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out.
FOSS - Free Open Source Software.
FOSDEM - Free and Open Source Software Developers’ European Meeting.
FTA - From the Article
FTP - File Transfer Protocol.
FTBFS - Fails To Build From Source. - For example when building a package with debuild (http://qa.ubuntuwire.com/ftbfs/)
FUD - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.
GA - General Availability.
GCN - Graphics Core Next.
GDM - GNOME Display Manager.
give-back - Give back to the builder - Retry a build.
GDPR - General Data Protection Regulation
glob A wildcard expression which expands to a list of files.
GPG - GNU Privacy Guard - GnuPrivacyGuardHowto - Community Help Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gpg
GPL - General Public License.
GPT - GUID Partition Table (a modern standard for disk partitions)
GPU - Graphics Processing Unit.
grep - Global Regular Expression Print
GSMA - Groupe Speciale Mobile Association.
GTK - GNOME Tool Kit; ubuntu DE- a toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces.
GUADEC - GNOME Users’ And Developers’ European Conference.
GUI - Graphical User Interface.
HA - High Availability.
HAL - Hardware Abstraction Layer
HDD - Hard Disk Drive
ICT - Information and Communitcation Technology.
ICYMI - in case you missed it.
IDE - Integrated Development Environment.
IM - Instant Messaging.
IMAP - Internet Message Access Protocol.
IOPS - Input/Output Operations Per Second.
IP - Intellectual Property. A term used as a blanket to cover Copyrights, Trademarks and Patents.
IPsec - Internet Protocol Security.
IRC - Internet Relay Chat.
ISA - Instruction Set Architecture
ISO - International Organization for Standardization. Also, the suffix given to disk images that comply with the conventional Standards format.
ISV - Independent Software Vendors.
ITA - Intent To Adopt - http://people.debian.org/~mpalmer/debian-mentors_FAQ.html
ITP - Intent To Package - http://people.debian.org/~mpalmer/debian-mentors_FAQ.html
JDK - (OpenJDK) Java Developer’s Kit.
KML - Keyhole Markup Language: an XML-based language schema for expressing geographic annotation and visualization.
KVM - Kernel based Virtual Machine.
KVM - Keyboard, Video, Mouse (Hardware Switch)
LAMP - Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl (or some say PHP).
LAPP - Linux, Apache, PostgreSQL, Perl (or some say PHP).
LCD - Liquid Crystal Display.
LD - Local Directory.
LDAP - Lightweight Directory Access Protocol.
LGPL - Lesser General Public License.
LGTM - Looks Good To Me.
LLM - Large Language Model(s).
LLVM - Low-Level Virtual Machine ← https://arraybolt3.substack.com/p/making-hyper-minimal-ubuntu-virtual
lmgtfy let me google that for you.
LP - LaunchPad - LaunchPad - Ubuntu Wiki Ubuntu in Launchpad
LKML - Linux Kernel Mailing List.
LoCo - Local Community
LPI - Launchpad Integration.
LRM - linux-restricted-modules
LTS - Long Term Support. - Said of a release that will receive support for 3-years/5-years rather than the standard 9 months
LTSP - Linux Terminal Server Project.
LUKS - Linux Unified Key Setup - disk encryption.
LUG - Linux User’s Group.
LVFS - Linux Vendor Firmware Service
LVM - Logical Volume Manager.
MC - MOTU Council - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/Council
MIA - Missing In Action.
MID - Mobile Internet Device.
MIR - Main Inclusion Report - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MainInclusionProcess
MOK - Machine Owner Key
MoM - Merge-o-Matic - The official Ubuntu merge system, which lists outstanding packages where there has been a Debian upload since the last Ubuntu upload. http://merges.ubuntu.com/
MOTU - Master Of The Universe - Developers responsible for the Universe and Multiverse repositories. MOTU - Ubuntu Wiki
MOTU SWAT - MOTU Special Weapons And Tactics - Handles Universe Security
MR - Merge Request.
MRE - Micro Release Exception.
MTA - Mail Transport Agent - programs that accept messages from senders and route them along to their final recipients.
MUA - Mail User Agent - the program you use to read and send mail from your own personal computer.
NAS - Network-attached storage.
NBS - Not Built from Source - Packages no longer built from source, and therefore candidates for removal from the archives. UbuntuDevelopment/NBS - Ubuntu Wiki
NGO - Non-governmental Organization.
NMU - Non-maintainer upload - Term from the Debian world. When someone other than the formal maintainer uploads a package, f.ex. containing a bug fix
NTFS - the standard file system of Windows NT.
NTP - Network Time Protocol.
NTR - Nonprofit Technology Resources.
NUC - Next Unit of Computing / a small-form-factor personal computer designed by Intel.
NVMe - Non Volatile Memory Express (High performance protocol/interface for SSDs)
ODF - Open Document Format.
OEM - Original Equipment Manufacturer.
OP - Original Poster.
OP - Original Post.
OS - Operating System.
OSCON - The O’Reilly Open Source Convention.
OSD - On Screen Display.
OSS - Open Source Software.
OTFC - Open and Free Technology Community - #debian-python is on the OFTC IRC network (for example irc.debian.org to get a nearby server). #ubuntu-motu is on the freenode IRC network (for example irc.ubuntu.com to get a nearby server) http://www.oftc.net
OTR - Off-the-Record Messaging ← private conversation with the person you want to initiate a secure session.
PAM - Pluggable Authentication Module.
PAPT - Python Applications Packaging Team - Debian packaging team of python programs which don’t provide public modules http://python-apps.alioth.debian.org/policy.html
PaaS - Platform-as-a-Service
PDA - Personal Digital Assistant.
POC - Proof Of Concept.
POP3 - Post Office Protocol version 3.
PPA - Personal Package Archive - http://help.launchpad.net/PPA
PPA - Personal Project Archive.
PR - Pull Request.
PSA - Public Service Announcement
PWA - Progressive Web Application.
Q&A - Question And Answer.
QA - Quality Assurance.
RC - Release Candidate.
Retpoline - short for RETurn tramPOLINE
RFC - Request For Comments.
RFP - Request For Package - http://people.debian.org/~mpalmer/debian-mentors_FAQ.html
RISC - Reduced Instruction Set Computer
RMA - Return erchandise authorization.
RMB - Regional Membership Board.
RNG - Random Number Generator
ROCK - Recognized Of Considerable Knowledge - Used as a compliment
ROM - Request Of Maintainer.
RoQA - Requested by the QA team.
RT - Request tracker.
SaaS - Software as a Service.
sabdfl - Self Appointed Benevolent Dictator For Life - Mark Shuttleworth.
SASL - Simple Authentication and Security Layer: a framework for authentication and data security in Internet protocols.
SELinux - Security-Enhanced Linux.
SEO - Search Engine Optimization.
SFD - Software Freedom Day.
SIM - Subscriber Identity Module - these cards mostly just identify you to your cell carrier.
SoC - System on a Chip.
SoHo - Small Office, Home Office.
SMB - Small, Medium sized Business
SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.
SRU - Stable release updates. - StableReleaseUpdates - Ubuntu Wiki
SSD - Solid State Drive.
SDDM - Simple Desktop Display Manager - Kubuntu (KDE) and Lubuntu (LXQt).
SSH - Secure SHell - a network protocol that allows data to be exchanged using a secure channel between two networked devices.
SSL - Secure Sockets Layer.
svm - Support Vector Machine.
SWAT - Samba Web Administration Tool.
TB - Technical Board - http://www.ubuntu.com/community/processes/techboard
TCK - Technology Compatibility Kit.
TED - Technology, Entertainment, Design.
TFW - That Feeling When
TIAS - Try It And See.
TIL - Touched-It-Last - The last person who uploaded a package. He’s responsible for syncing or merging it when a new development cycle starts.
TIL - Today I Learned
TLD - Top Level Domains sit at the highest level - “com”, “org”, “gov”, “net”, and “edu".
Tls - Transport Layer Security, successor to Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).
TL;DR - Too long; didn’t read.
TPM - Trusted Platform Module
TPM/FDE - Full Disk Encryption (The TPM chip securely stores a key derived from the system’s boot state)
ttfn - “ta ta for now”, - British
udev - Userspace Device manager. It receives device ‘events’ from the kernel and does ‘stuff’ based on matching various attributes. The rule is ‘triggered’ when the device is attached (kernel sends an ACTION=“add” event)
UD - Ubuntu Discourse.
UDS - Ubuntu Developer Summit.
UEC - Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud.
UEFI - A modern replacement for the traditional BIOS.
UEHS - Ubuntu External Health Status - http://qa.ubuntuwire.com/uehs/
UF - Ubuntu Forums (retired Dec 2024)
UME - Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded.
u-m-s - ubuntu-main-sponsors - Sponsor list for packages that are in main or restricted https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-main-sponsors
unmetdeps - UNMET DEPendencieS - Packages that cannot be installed as the dependencies cannot be satisfied.
UNE - Ubuntu Netbook Edition.
Unity - Ubuntu’s New Desktop Shell.
UNR - Ubuntu Netbook Remix.
URI - Uniform Resource Identifier.
URL - Uniform Resource Locator.
USB - Universal Serial Bus.
/usr Unix System Resources
UTC - Coordinated Universal Time: UTC replaced GMT as the basis for the main reference time scale or civil time in various regions on January 1, 1972.
u-u-s - ubuntu-universe-sponsors - Sponsor list for packages that are in universe or multiverse https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-universe-sponsors
VCS - Version Control Systems
VDU Visual Display Unit
UVF - Upstream Version Freeze
UWN - Ubuntu Weekly News[letter]
VGA - Video Graphics Array.
VM - Virtual Machine
VNC - Virtual Network Computing.
VPN - Virtual Private Network.
WNPP - Work-Needing and Prospective Packages - List of packages in need of new maintainers and prospective packages in Debian http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/
WPA - Wi-Fi Protected Access.
WSL - Windows Subsystem for Linux - suport: ##windows-wsl is the wsl channel.
WS-Security - Web Service Security.
YAML - YAML Ain’t Markup Language. https://linuxconfig.org/introduction-to-yaml-with-examples