Devices 2

Question 1

Linux recognizes most optical storage drives as the SCSI devices ____, ____ and so on.

Answer 1

/dev/sr0

/dev/sr1

Question 2

What are terminals?

Answer 2

Devices for moving characters between a user process and an I/O device, usually for text output to a terminal screen.

Question 3

Where does the name terminal come from?

Answer 3

The terminal device interface goes back a long way, to the days when terminals were typewriter-based devices.

Question 4

What are pseudoterminal devices?

Answer 4

Emulated terminals that understand the I/O features of real terminals, but rather than talk to a real piece of hardware, the kernel presents the I/O interface to a piece of software, such as the shell terminal window that you type most of your commands into.

Question 5

Linux has two primary display modes. What are they?

Answer 5

text mode

X Window System server (graphics mode, usually via a display manager)

Question 6

Although Linux systems traditionally booted in text mode, most distributions now use kernel parameters and interim graphical display mechanisms (_____ such as plymouth) to completely hide text mode as the system is booting.

Answer 6

bootsplashes

Question 7

Unnecessary complexity in the kernel is dangerous because you can too easily introduce ________.

Answer 7

system instability

Question 8

The kernel presents each partition as a ____________, just as it would an entire disk.

Answer 8

block device

Question 9

Partitions are defined on a small area of the disk called a _____.

Answer 9

partition table.

Question 10

There are many kinds of partition tables. The traditional table is the one found inside the ________. A newer standard starting to gain traction is the _______.

Answer 10

Master Boot Record (MBR)

Globally Unique Identifier Partition Table (GPT)

Question 11

parted

Answer 11

a text-based tool that supports both MBR and GPT

Question 12

gparted

Answer 12

a graphical version of parted

Question 13

fdisk

Answer 13

the traditional text-based Linux disk partitioning tool. fdisk does not support GPT

Question 14

gdisk

Answer 14

a version of fdisk that supports GPT but not MBR

Question 15

The traditional MBR partition table is called _____ by parted

Answer 15

msdos

Question 16

A filesystem is a form of database; it supplies the ______.

Answer 16

structure to transofrm a simple block device into the sophisticated hierarchy of files and subdirectories that users can understand.

Question 17

Much as the SCSI subsystem standardizes communication between different device types and kernel control commands, Virtual File System (VFS) ensures that all _______.

Answer 17

all filesystem implementatoins support a standard interface so that user-space applications access files and directories in the same manner.

Question 18

ext4

Answer 18

the fourth extended filesystem

Question 19

The _________ was a longtime default for Linux systems inspried by traditional Unix filesystems such as the Unix File System (UFS) and the Fast File System (FFS0. The ______ added a journal feature (a small cache outside the normal filesystem data structure) to enhance data integrity and hasten booting. The ____ is an incremental improvement with support for larger files and a greater number of subdirectories.

Answer 19

second extended filesystem (ext2)
third extended filesystem (ext3)
fourth extended filesystem (ext4)

Question 20

______ is a CD-ROM standard.

Answer 20

ISO 9660 (iso9660)

Question 21

____ (msdos, vfat, umsdos) pertain to Microsoft systems.

Answer 21

FAT filesytems

Question 22

What is HFS+?

Answer 22

HFS+ (hfsplus) is an Apple standard used on most Macintosh systems.

Question 23

New Linux filesystems, such as ____, are under development and may be poised to replace the Extended series.

Answer 23

Btrfs

Question 24

On Unix, the process of attaching a filesystem is called ______.

Answer 24

mounting

Question 25

When the system boots, the kernel reads some configuration data and ___________.

Answer 25

mounts root (/) based on the configuration data.

Question 26

If you run out of real memory, what can Linux do?

Answer 26

The Linux virtual memory system can automatically move pieces of memory to and from a disk storage.

Question 27

What is it called when Linux virtual memory system moves pieces of memory to and from disk storage?

Answer 27

Swapping.

Question 28

What is swapping?

Answer 28

Pieces of idle programs are swapped to the disk in exchange for active pieces residing on the disk.

Question 29

The disk are used to store memory pages is called _____ or ____ for short.

Answer 29

swap space

swap

Question 30

What is swap space?

Answer 30

The disk are used to store memory pages.

Question 31

If you’re running many processess, it’s generally fine to swap out parts of inactive processes or even inactive pieces of active processes. However, if you’re constantly using the swap space because many active processes want to use the memory at once, _________.

Answer 31

you will suffer serious performance problems because disk I/O is just too slow to keep up with the rest of the system.