Backdoor

Way of tricking people by distributing a supposely secured system with an extra login unknown to the user. The attacker can then enter the system at will.

Bandwidth

Measure of a network data transfering power (capacity by time unit).

Bitrate

Measure of the information that is send, received, or processed. Bitrate is "expensive", thus, you typically want an Internet connection with a high bitrate, and applications that use a low Bitrate.

BSD

Flavour of the UNIX operating system that evolved into several flavours. GNU/Linux is BSD-compatible. Several free software BSD implementations exist :

• http://www.netbsd.org/
• http://www.openbsd.org/
• http://www.freebsd.org/

C

The C programming language was devised in the early 1970s as a system implementation language for the nascent Unix operating system. Derived from the typeless language BCPL, it evolved a type structure; created on a tiny machine as a tool to improve a meager programming environment, it has become one of the dominant languages of today. More at http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/cbook/, http://www.iota-six.co.uk/c/01_intro.htm, http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html, http://opencbp.sourceforge.net/ and http://www.sysprog.net/quotec

Client

Program that gets or requires resources from a server

Code

See "source code"

Cox (Alan)

Linus Torvald's right hand for the development of the Linux kernel.

Cracker

Computer scientist using his knowledge for dishonest and destructive purposes, be it for personal reasons or nihilism.
Not to be confused with "hacker", as the media often unfortunately do.

Cracker

Pessoa com conhecimentos em ciências da computação que usa suas habilidades para propósitos desonestos ou destrutivos, seja por razões pessoais ou por nihilismo. Não é para ser confundido com "hacker", como os meios de comunicação infelizmente fazem.

CVS

CVS is the Concurrent Versions System, the dominant open-source network-transparent version control system. CVS is useful for everyone from individual developers to large, distributed teams: * Its client-server access method lets developers access the latest code from anywhere there's an Internet connection. * Its unreserved check-out model to version control avoids artificial conflicts common with the exclusive check-out model. * Its client tools are available on most platforms.

De Icaza (Miguel)

Founder of the GNOME project.

Debian

Debian is a free operating system (OS) for your computer. An operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your computer run. Debian uses the Linux kernel (the core of an operating system), but most of the basic OS tools come from the GNU project; hence the name GNU/Linux.

Desktop

Graphical workspace that allows several applications to be displayed.

Directory

Special file type which can contain other files and/or directories.

ESR

See Raymond.

Ettricht (Mathias)

Founder of the KDE project.

File

Document readable, or not, by a human being, stored on a memory device of some kind. In UNIX, everything is a file.

Folder

Term used by Macintosh (and thus by Windows) afficionados to designate what everybody knows as a directory .

Free

(Opposite to "proprietary" or "closed"): software for which source code is available and to which it is permitted to apply modifications.

Free software

"Free software" is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of "free" as in "free speech", not as in "free beer".
Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
• The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

A program is Free software if users have all of these freedoms.
Source : http://gnuwww.epfl.ch/philosophy/free-sw.html

Freeware

Program provided for no money ("free" as in "free beer"), but does not provide access to the source code (and thus non-"free" as in "free speech"). Freeware is not garanteed to remain costless forever.

GNUWin contains neither Freeware nor shareware, but only completely free software.

FTP

File Transfer Protocol : for data transmission over a network. Non-secured, this system dates back to Arpanet times.

Geek

Technology fan, especially in computing. It is the hacker way of living, but does not always imply a deep technical knowledge.

GIMP

The GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. This site contains information about downloading, installing, using, and enhancing GIMP. This site also serves as a distribution point for the latest releases, patches, plugins, and scripts. We also try to provide as much information about the GIMP community and related projects as possible.

GNOME

(GNU Network Object Model Enviroment). Desktop environment project for GNU.

GNU

Recursive acronym for "GNU is Not Unix" (which helps a great deal all right). Great Free Software benevolent project that aims at rebuilding a free Unix-like system.
Read http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html for more information.

GNU Generation

Team of EPFL students for the promotion of Free Software in general, and GNU/Linux in particular.

GNU Generation organizes install-parties and demonstrations during the academic year. It also releases GNUWin.

GNU/Linux

Operating system featuring the Linux kernel and the GNU project utilities.

GPL

The GNU General Public License defends Free Softwares from being stolen and taken as proprietary softwares. It can be found at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

Hacker

Computer fan for whom programming is close to playing. A typical hacker would find possible new uses for systems that the designers never thought of. Hackers made computing what it is today, much more than big companies: the "Best of Hackers" includes the PC, the Internet, the World Wide Web, and of course Linux.
The word "hacker" is often incorrectly used to designate a computer criminal; the correct word for this meaning is "cracker".

Hard disc

(Also "hard drive", or "hard disk" for our American friends): mass storage periphery; modern computers usually hold at least one hard disc that contains the operating system. It is also usually where user data are stored.

HTML

HyperText Markup Language : standard language for data representation on the World Wide Web.

Hurd

The GNU Hurd is the GNU project's replacement for the Unix kernel. The Hurd is a collection of servers that run on the Mach microkernel to implement file systems, network protocols, file access control, and other features that are implemented by the Unix kernel or similar kernels (such as Linux). Find more info at http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/

Inode

Disc space quantum. Physical locations of data are given by the inode number from which the data are written.

Install fest

Look under install-party

Install-party

(Sometimes also called "install-fest") : public meeting at which experienced Linux users help newcomers with their knowledge, and sometimes with their CD-ROMs, to install free software on their computers.

Instruction

Program quantum. Command understood by the computer processor and that will be executed. An instruction can be a logical or a mathematical process, or a memory access.

Internet

"Network of networks"; systems that connect local networks together so that it is possible to exchange data worldwide.

IRC

From http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/new2irc.html#what:

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) provides a way of communicating in real time with people from all over the world. It consists of various separate networks (or "nets") of IRC servers, machines that allow users to connect to IRC. The largest nets are EFnet (the original IRC net, often having more than 32,000 people at once), Undernet, IRCnet, DALnet, and NewNet.

KDE

The first desktop environment for free operating systems.

Kernel

Fundamental part of an operating system. Links the hardware and the rest of the system.

LAN

"Local Area Network": small network.

LaTeX

Collection of TeX macros that allow eay formatting of technical (or any kind of) documents

LGPL

"Library GNU Public License", also called "Lesser GNU Public License": free GNU license, less restrictive than the GPL, in that it allows use of the code by linking to commercial and proprietary code. It is typically used for libraries.

Library

Software that "helps" other software, but does not have any purpose by itself.

Linux

Free implementation of a UNIX-like kernel, developed by Linus Torvalds since 1991, and by numerous other persons thereafter. Sometimes also designates the whole operating system and the software than runs on top of it; for this meaning, people sometimes use "GNU/Linux" to emphasise the importance of the GNU software that make Linux a complete operating system.

Mac OS X

Operating system that now comes as a standard with all Apple computers. It relies on a custom version of a BSD kernel, called "Darwin", that has been released as open source; the OS contains lots of free software, such as GNU Chess, Emacs, ...

Since its release, numerous free applications have been ported to Mac OS X, so that it is now easy to get lots of high quality programs at no cost

The use of UNIX by Apple show how predominant this system is, and adoption of open source philosophy for part of the code illustrates how open source can be advantageous for all, programmers and users as well.

Morphix

Morphix is a modular distribution, with live-cd support and without any configuration (you burn the CD, you put it in your CD-Rom drive, you boot and it works... out of the box). Also, installing Morphix on a harddisk is a breeze, just click on the icon on the desktop! Currently, iso's with icewm, Gnome2.2, KDE3.1 and a game iso are available for download! For more information, check the FAQ.

MS-Windows

Microsoft Windows (tm) is a family of operating systems for IBM-compatible personal computers. It is the most commonly used operating system on PCs, mainly because it comes pre-installed on most PCs sold on market.

Multitasking

System able to execute several processes at the same time.

Network

Way of linking computers (Internet for instance) through which data, commands or services are exchanged.

OGG

Ogg Vorbis is a new audio compression format. It is roughly comparable to other formats used to store and play digital music, such as MP3, VQF, AAC, and other digital audio formats. It is different from these other formats because it is completely free, open, and unpatented. Ogg Vorbis is a completely open, patent-free, professional audio encoding and streaming technology with all the benefits of Open Source.

Open

See "free"

Open source

"Free software" and "open source" describe the same category of software, more or less, but say different things about the software, and about values. The GNU Project continues to use the term "free software", to express the idea that freedom, not just technology, is important.
Source: http://gnuwww.epfl.ch/gnu/thegnuproject.html

Operating system

The Operating System has two main tasks: provide an abstraction layer for the hardware, and manage resources. The most commonly known operating systems are Windows and Mac OS, but lots of others exist, like Unix and of course GNU/Linux.

OS

Abbreviation for "Operating System"

PC

Abbreviation for "Personal Computer": any personal computer, as opposed to mainframes, the "big irons". For some years, the term "PC" has been used to refer to IBM-compatible personal computers -- this is why one can sometimes see the term "PC" used in contrast to Macintosh computers, that are nontheless also personal computers. Here, we use "PC" to designate IBM-compatible personal computers.

• Q: How do I recognise an IBM-compatible PC ?
• A: If it runs MS-Windows, it is a PC
• Q: Then PC implies Windows, does it ?\
• A: No; PCs are not and never were "designed for Windows" (whatever may be written on the box for marketing purposes); lots of other operating systems exist for PCs, like Linux for instance.

Peripheral

All informatic systems (i.e. computers) are built around three main components. The CPU (which executes instructions), some memory (RAM or RAM, containing programs and data) and peripherals, which connect the computer to the outside world. Peripherals can be very versatile, like a keyboard, a mouse and a screen; but also a temperature sensor and a motor.

Pirate

See "cracker"

Process

Instance of a program, in the sense of a set of instructions loaded into memory and capable of being executed.

Program

See software

Protected memory

method of assigning Random Access Memory to applications by allowing them to use only a well-defined part of the total RAM.

RAM

see "Random Access Memory"

Random access memory

(RAM or also sometimes called "central memory"): fast-access volatile memory. Programs are usually loaded into RAM for quick execution, which is more convenient for the user (read/write times are about 1000 faster on RAM then on a hard disc).

Raymond (Eric S.)

Founder of the "Open Source" movement, which defines itself as a non-politic version of the "Free Software" movement. Also author of numerous sociological articles which are references in the Free developer community (for example "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" or "The Magic Cauldron").

Recursive

See "recursive"

RMS

See "Stallman"

Server

System that provides a resource. For instance, a file server holds data than can be used by numerous clients.

Shareware

Demonstration version of a closed-source program, that can be obtained for no money, but that requires you to pay a fee before accessing the complete version of the program.

Shareware is not guaranteed to remain costless forever. GNUWin does contains neither freeware nor shareware, but only completely free softwares.

Software

List of instructions that are understood by a computer and used to do a specific task. Software is written in a human understandable language, and is then transformed into a form that is understandable by the computer. This form is called executable code.

Source

see "source code"

Source code

Software consists of sets of binary instructions, that is a long list of "ones" and "zeros", that the computers understand, but is not understandable for a human being.

To make programming easier, programming languages are used: they are special languages which can be understood by a human being (after some training). The text which is written in programming languages, the source code, is read by a special program, called a compiler, which translates the source code into binary code for execution by a computer.

Without the source code, it is virtually impossible to correct and enhance software; this is the reason why Free Software policy recommends systematic publication of source code together with all programs.

Stallman (Richard M.)

Founder of the GNU project and of the Free Software Foundation. Initial author of the emacs text editor, the gcc compiler and the gdb debugger.

TCP/IP

"Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol" : data transmission standard. A file gets "sliced" into small "packets" that hold the order into which they are to be reunited, their destination, the time of sending and the expeditor. Packets sent through a network can then take different paths and be reunited when they arrive at their destination.

Terminal

Computer terminal that allows interacting with a mainframe; in present day terms, a program that emulates a terminal to interact with the system.

TeX

Professional typesetting program for scientific documents

Torvalds (Linus Benedict)

Author of the Linux kernel and authority on the matter. He also suggested the appearance of Tux, the Linux mascot.

Trojan horse

Program that appears to execute a simple task, but actually executes more sensitive actions at the same time; for instance, a program might play a small film to entertain you, but, at the same time, copy your Outlook address book and send it to a third party (Outlook is especially vulnerable to this kind of problem, which is the reason why we recommend using another mail client, such as the one that comes with Mozilla, for instance).

Tux

Penguin, mascot of Linux. Its name is rumored to come from both "tuxedo" and "Torvalds's UniX".

UNIX

Family of very powerful operating systems following a strict standard. Best-known flavours are UNIX System V, Solaris (for SUN), BSD (the Berkeley Standard Distribution) and of course GNU/Linux.

Virus

Program designed for undesirable tasks (from the recipient's point of view). This can cover a wide spectrum ranging from a simple warning message to the transmission of confidential data (passwords for instance), destruction of data or even putting some hardware out of order. Viruses which propagate via a network are called "worms".

WAN

Wide Area Network: big network

Windows

See "MS-Windows"

WWW

System for data presentation on the Internet, based on the HTML standard. Designed for scientific data at the beginning of the 90's at CERN, Geneva, the WWW has since been opened for public and commercial use, thus popularising the use of Internet.

X

Abbreviation for "X Window System": protocol of an graphical user interface that can be used through a network to allow a client to connect to a server.