All Computings
DMA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_memory_access The process by which various hardware subsystems (e.g. PCI) may directly access the computer RAM without running any code on the CPU...
Distribution
A given combination of Linux kernel, userland, and standard programs is called a Distribution Most distributions are GNU/Linux though there are a few key exceptions: Distributions like dd-wrt that fit into a highly restricted amount of RAM may distribute as Busybox/ Linux Android is Linux with an entirely different userland and series of conventions
Directory
Represents a structure containing zero or more Files and other directories In a tree-like File System such as ext4, the directory represents a small data table that contains a list of filenames that point to a relevant inode, and directory names that point to other directory data structures elsewhere on disk....
dhcpd
A System Daemon for communicating with DHCP servers, and setting IP addresses for the network interface
Devices
https://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/ The program/library that handles various read/write operations and converts it to the actual on-the-wire instructions that will control the chipset in the target hardware (e....
Desktop Environment
A desktop environment is a series of programs that run on top of the Window Manager. The desktop environment can contain a range of functionality including: Drawing enhancements, such as wallpapers, icons, themes Useful GUI programs, such as a file explorer Functionality not provided by the underlying Window Manager such as copy-paste and drag-drop On Linux the most common desktop environments are KDE, Gnome, though there are a wide range of alternatives
D-Bus
A specialised system commonly used by Linux Desktop Environments and various GUI programs for IPC Instead of typical 1:1 messaging in traditional IPC (where each program would need to connect to every other program it needs to communicate with), the D-Bus acts as a central location for all programs to connect to, and allows them all to communicate in a central area
CPU Rings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_ring On many processors (including x86) an instruction is run inside a certain CPU ring Switching CPU rings is a “costly” operation (from a CPU perspective) that requires specialised CPU calls...
coreutils
The base utilities required to actually make use of a system. Largely fill out the minumum program list previously described by Linux Standard Base
Copy On Write (COW)
Copy on write typically refers to the method for storing changes to immutable data over time. E.g. A base layer of data is stored....