Abbreviation for Advanced Control and Power Interface. Allows control of power management from within the operating system.

See also: APM

Abbreviation for Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller. A set of devices that make up an interrupt controller for multi-processor support. It consists of three parts: local APIC, In/Out APIC and an APIC bus.

Abbreviation for Advanced Power Management. Power management from within the BIOS. Replaced by ACPI.

See also: ACPI

See also: BIOS

Abbreviation for Basic Input/Output System. Services that allow the hardware and software of a computer to communicate.

The distribution of Linux used by the author. http://www.debian.org

Abbreviation for Display Power Management Signaling. A standard developed to extend the life of PC monitors and conserve energy when monitors are not in use.

Abbreviation for Differentiated System Description Table. This table contains information and configuration about the base system. It is not always capable of supplying fully function tables and sometimes must be patched.

See also: patch, http://acpi.sourceforge.net/dsdt/index.php.

Abbreviation for LInux LOader. Installs the boot loader which decides the operating system to use when the computer is first turned on. You may have Grub installed instead.

The core of an operating system. Responsible for many things including managing resources, sharing memory and user access.

See also: http://www.kernel.org

A piece of code that can be loaded or unloaded from the main program. In this document module refers to kernel modules.

See also: kernel

A fix applied to the source code of a program. Used to correct bugs or enhance a program's capabilities.

Abbreviation for Real Time Clock. Used by the system to keep track of time while the computer is powered off.

See also: http://www.linuxgazette.com/node/view/8993

Abbreviation for Three Letter Acronym. Developers love to use their TLAs. Most of the time they do not even notice.