List of Linux acronyms and their details

About a week ago, I discussed with my friend some Linux topics.

At the time, he told me that he didn’t find a proper resource to find information about Linux command acronyms.

I did a little research, but I didn’t find what I wanted about this topic.

So I decided to write an article about it.

It may help others who are looking for this information.

We have added a very small number of acronyms at this time.

But I can say with certainty, over the period of time, we will load a dozen of abbreviations.

So I urge you to stay on this page.

Also, if you would like to contribute to this article I would request you to update the information about acronyms in the comment section.

We are very happy to update this on your behalf.

Linux Package Manager:

Command/Acronyms	Description
yum	Yellowdog Updater, Modified
dnf	Dandified yum
rpm	Red Hat Package Manager
apt	Advanced Package Tool
dpkg	Debian Package
YaST	Yet another Setup Tool

File Transfer Commands:

Command/Acronyms	Description
cp	copy
scp	Secure Copy
rsync	Remote Sync
pssh	Parallel Secure SHell
dsh	Distributed Shell or Dancer’s Shell
ftp	file transfer protocol
sftp	secure file transfer protocol

Linux Filesystem Commands:

Command/Acronyms	Description
fdisk	fixed disk or format disk
Parted	PARTition and EDitor
cfdisk	curses fdisk
df	Disk free
du	Disk usage
fsck	file system consistency check
UUID	Universally Unique IDentifier of a partition
mkfs	make filesystem
RAID	Redundant Array of Independent Disks or Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks.
udev	userspace /dev
ASM	Automatic Storage Management
NFS	Network file system
lsblk	List block devices
fs	Filesystem
SAN	storage area network
scsi	Small computer standard interface

Linux Text Processing:

Command/Acronyms	Description
vi	visual
vim	vi improved
awk	Aho, Weinberger, Kernighan (names of program authors)
emacs	editing macros
fgrep	fixed-string grep
egrep	extended grep
grep	global regular expression print
rm	remove
umask	user mask
sed	stream editor
wc	word count
xargs	extended arguments
cat	Concatenates

Linux File and Directory Management:

Command/Acronyms	Description
mkdir	make directory
rmdir	Remove directories, if they are empty
tar	tape archive
chown	Change Owner
chmod	Change Mode
chgrp	Change Group
pwd	Print working directory
cd	Change directory

Linux User Management:

Command/Acronyms	Description
id	identity
umask	user mask
su	substitute user or Switch User or superuser
GID	group identification
UID	user identification
SUID	set user ID
SGID	set group ID

Linux Process Management:

Command/Acronyms	Description
PID	process identification number
PPID	Parent Process identification number
ps	process status
fg	foreground
bg	background
lsof	list of open files

Linux Network Commands:

Command/Acronyms	Description
nmap	Network Mapper
ss	Socket Statistics
netstat	Network Statistics
dig	Domain information groper
IP	Internet protocol
TCP	Transmission control protocol
ssh	secure shell
NIC	Network interface card
NTP	Network time protocol
telnet	Terminal over network
DHCP	Dynamic host configuration protocol
LAN	Local area network
MAC	Media access control
MTU	Maximum transmission unit
SNMP	Simple network management protocol
VPN	Virtual private network
WAN	Wide area network
WAP	Wireless access point/Wireless application protocol

Linux Hardware Information:

Command/Acronyms	Description
lsusb	List USB devices
lspci	List all PCI devices
lsscsi	List SCSI devices
vm	Virtual memory
RAM	Random access memory

Type of Linux Shells and Information:

Command/Acronyms	Description
sh	Bourne shell
bash	GNU Bourne-Again Shell
ksh	Korn shell
csh	C shell
Fish	Friendly interactive shell
chsh	Change shell

Linux General Commands:

Command/Acronyms

Description

• SAR : System Activity Report
• GRUB : GRand Unified Bootloader
• DNS : Domain Name Service or Domain Name System
• FQDN : Fully qualified domain names
• DE : Desktop Environment
• GUI : Graphical User Interface
• UI : User Interface
• LILO : Linux Loader
• SELINUX : Security Enhanced Linux
• SSL : Secure Sockets Layer
• LAMP : Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP
• LAMPP : Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP and PERL
• http : Hypertext Transfer Protocol
• https : Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure
• PHP: Hypertext Pre-processor
• init : initialization

awk – Aho, Weinberger, Kernighan (names of program authors)