Jargon Jam

I’d thought I’d use today to launch a new series of articles I’m calling Jargon Jam. As you can probably guess from the title, the basic idea is to try and explain some of the jargon terms we Linux geeks use everyday, often without even thinking about it. The idea arose a few weeks ago at a tech conference when I realised that although I was talking to intelligent and technically savvy people, they had no idea what I meant by terms like Linux and Open Source, let alone the more complex terms. Someone asked me “should I install Ubuntu or Linux?”, I replied “Ubuntu is Linux” but this didn’t help a lot. There’s a lot of terminology we take for granted. It can put people off and I want to demystify some of it if I can. I’m not an expert or a guru by any stretch of the imagination but perhaps I can point you in the right direction if you’re new to all this. The basic premise is to focus one word each time and explain it in basic terms as quickly as possible. It’s a crash course if you will, for people who want and/or need it. I thought the best word to get us started would probably be the one I use most. Read the rest of this entry »