partitionmanager/doc/glossary.docbook

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<glossary id="glossary">
<glossentry id="glossary-command">
<glossterm>Command</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>
In &partman; commands are what <link linkend="glossary-job">jobs</link> are made up of. These are very low level steps being taken, often executed by an external tool, and only visible in the detailed progress report.
</para>
<para>
The user normally does not have to bother with commands at all.
</para>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-operation"/>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-job"/>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
<glossentry id="glossary-cylinder">
<glossterm>Cylinder</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>
A unit used to divide up a <link linkend="glossary-device">device</link>. Some operating systems and many disk tools require <link linkend="glossary-partition">partitions</link> to begin and end on a cylinder. &partman; therefore automatically snaps partitions to cylinder boundaries when changing their start or end.
</para>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-head"/>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-sector"/>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
<glossentry id="glossary-cylindersize">
<glossterm>Cylinder Size</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>
The number of <link linkend="glossary-sector">sectors</link> per <link linkend="glossary-cylinder">cylinder</link> on a <link linkend="glossary-device">device</link>. Calculated as the number of <link linkend="glossary-head">heads</link> multiplied by the number of <link linkend="glossary-sector">sectors</link> per track.
</para>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
<glossentry id="glossary-device">
<glossterm>Device</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>
A physical disk device. Physical disk devices are divided into logical sections called <link linkend="glossary-partition">partitions</link> with the use of <link linkend="glossary-partitiontable">partition tables</link>.
</para>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
<glossentry id="glossary-disklabel">
<glossterm>Disk Label</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>
Another name for a <link linkend="glossary-partitiontable">partition table</link> stemming from the SUN/BSD world.
</para>
<para>
<note>
<para>
They are easy to mix up, but a disk label has nothing to do with a <link linkend="glossary-filesystemlabel">file system label</link>.
</para>
<para>
See <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_disklabel">this Wikipedia entry</ulink> for details on the name.
</para>
</note>
</para>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-partitiontable"/>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
<glossentry id="glossary-extendedpartition">
<glossterm>Extended Partition</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>
A <link linkend="glossary-partition">partition</link> that contains other partitions. Extended partitions can only be <link linkend="glossary-primarypartition">primary partitions</link> themselves. Whether extended partitions are available or not depends on the <link linkend="glossary-partitiontable">partition table</link> type used. MS-DOS partition tables allow one extended partition per <link linkend="glossary-device">device</link>.
</para>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-primarypartition"/>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-logicalpartition"/>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
<glossentry id="glossary-filesystem">
<glossterm>File System</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>
A file system defines how the storage of data (files with their metadata, folders and their metadata, free space) is organized within a <link linkend="glossary-partition">partition</link>. There are various different types of file systems, some coming originally from the Unix/Linux world, some not. Examples for commonly used file systems on Unix/Linux are Btrfs, ext4 and XFS.
</para>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
<glossentry id="glossary-filesystemlabel">
<glossterm>File System Label</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>
A title of a file system. Some file systems (among them Btrfs, ext2/3/4, FAT16/32 and NTFS) support setting a label for the file system so it can be identified in tools like &partman; or other applications.
</para>
<para>
<note>
<para>They are easy to mix up, but a file system label has nothing to do with a <link linkend="glossary-disklabel">disk label</link>.</para>
</note>
</para>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
<glossentry id="glossary-flag">
<glossterm>Flag</glossterm>
<glosssee otherterm="glossary-partitionflag"/>
</glossentry>
<glossentry>
<glossterm>GPT</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>A modern partition table format supported by most modern computers and operating systems. It supports more than 4 <link linkend="glossary-primarypartition">primary partitions</link> unlike older MS-DOS partition table.
</para>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
<glossentry id="glossary-head">
<glossterm>Head</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>
A unit used to divide up a <link linkend="glossary-device">device</link>.
</para>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-cylinder"/>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-sector"/>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
<glossentry id="glossary-job">
<glossterm>Job</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>
In &partman; a number of jobs is what <link linkend="glossary-operation">operations</link> are made up of. You normally do not have to bother with jobs at all; it only becomes apparent when applying the list of pending operations: &partman; will then show a progress dialog that is made up of all operations and their jobs and show which operation and which job is currently being executed.
</para>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-operation"/>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-command"/>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
<glossentry id="glossary-label">
<glossterm>Label</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>
Either a <link linkend="glossary-disklabel">disk label</link> or a <link linkend="glossary-filesystemlabel">file system label</link>.
</para>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-disklabel"/>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-filesystemlabel"/>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
<glossentry id="glossary-logicalpartition">
<glossterm>Logical Partition</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>
A <link linkend="glossary-partition">partition</link> inside an <link linkend="glossary-extendedpartition">extended partition</link>.
</para>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-primarypartition"/>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-extendedpartition"/>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
<glossentry id="glossary-luks">
<glossterm>LUKS</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>Linux Unified Key Setup is the standard encryption format for Linux.
</para>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
<glossentry id="glossary-lvm">
<glossterm>LVM</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>LVM is a system for managing logical partitions that is more flexible than normal partitions. It consists of three main components:</para>
<simplelist>
<member>LVM physical volumes are partitions on the disk whose space is managed by LVM.</member>
<member>LVM volume group is a collection of LVM physical volumes that can be partitioned into logical partitions. It might be used to create file systems spanning over multiple devices or to split encrypted <link linkend="glossary-luks">LUKS</link> volume into smaller partitions.</member>
<member>LVM logical volumes are similar to normal partitions except that they reside on LVM volume group. Also, the location of LVM logical partitions does not matter and they do not have to be physically contiguous. Therefore, &partman; does not allow to move LVM logical volumes and displays the remaining free space at the end of the device.</member>
</simplelist>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
<glossentry id="glossary-operation">
<glossterm>Operation</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>
&partman; divides the work it does up in operations, <link linkend="glossary-job">jobs</link> and <link linkend="glossary-command">commands</link>.
</para>
<para>
Operations are the most visible of the three. If you pick an action in the graphical user interface, this will likely result in a new operation being added to the list of pending operations. The idea behind that is: You will most probably want to set up quite a number of steps to transform the current state of your disk devices to the state you have in mind. Some of these steps may take quite a long time to execute (like copying a large file system or resizing a file system that is nearly full). To save you from having to sit in front of your computer for a long time waiting for one step to finish and then starting the next one, operations allow you to exactly specify how the computer's devices should look like once everything is finished, then let &partman; apply the operations and come back when it has executed all of them.
</para>
<para>
Operations are kept in a list of pending operations. As long as an operation has not been applied it can still be <link linkend="menu-edit-undo">taken back easily</link> and nothing will have been modified.
</para>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-job"/>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-command"/>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
<glossentry id="glossary-partition">
<glossterm>Partition</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>
A section of a <link linkend="glossary-device">hard disk device</link> that can hold a <link linkend="glossary-filesystem">file system</link> or other partitions. Without at least one valid partition, a disk can not be used.
</para>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-device"/>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-partitiontable"/>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-primarypartition"/>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-extendedpartition"/>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-logicalpartition"/>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
<glossentry id="glossary-partitionflag">
<glossterm>Partition Flag</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>
A marker for a <link linkend="glossary-partition">partition</link>. The availability of these flags depends on the type of <link linkend="glossary-partitiontable">partition table</link> used.
</para>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
<glossentry id="glossary-partitiontable">
<glossterm>Partition Table</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>
A small section at the beginning of a <link linkend="glossary-device">device</link> used to store information about the layout of the device's <link linkend="glossary-partition">partitions</link>. There are different types of partition tables, each with their own limitations.
</para>
<para>
Sometimes also referred to as <quote>disk label</quote>.
</para>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
<glossentry id="glossary-primarypartition">
<glossterm>Primary Partition</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>
A <link linkend="glossary-partition">partition</link> directly inside a <link linkend="glossary-partitiontable">partition table</link>, as opposed to <link linkend="glossary-logicalpartition">logical partitions</link>, which are in <link linkend="glossary-extendedpartition">extended partitions</link>.
</para>
<para>
<link linkend="glossary-partitiontable">Partition tables</link> usually impose restrictions on the maximum number of primary partitions that can be created on a <link linkend="glossary-device">device</link>. For MS-DOS type partition tables, for example, this maximum number is four.
</para>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-extendedpartition"/>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-logicalpartition"/>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
<glossentry id="glossary-sector">
<glossterm>Sector</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>
A unit used to divide up a <link linkend="glossary-device">device</link>. <link linkend="glossary-partition">Partitions</link> must always begin and end on a sector.
</para>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-head"/>
<glossseealso otherterm="glossary-cylinder"/>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
<glossentry id="glossary-sectorsize">
<glossterm>Sector Size</glossterm>
<glossdef>
<para>
The number of bytes per <link linkend="glossary-sector">sector</link> on a <link linkend="glossary-device">device</link>. The sector size of most devices in use today is 512 bytes.
</para>
</glossdef>
</glossentry>
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</glossary>