gdisk stands for GPT fdisk. cfdisk stands for curses fdisk. And so on and so forth. However, what does the original "f" in fdisk stand for? The only things I can think of would be either "files" or "floppy", but neither of these make a ton of sense.

I know very well what the command does, but man dd, info dd tell me: 'Convert and copy a file', as does GNU Coreutils . Google says its an abbreviation of everything between medicine and bad webchat slang; except someone saying it means 'data destroyer', something used in PC forensics - I'd be horrified if my dd destroyed _my_ data! Any insight? :-) --- **Update**: Of course I had to check the jargon file : > The Unix dd(1) was designed with a > weird, distinctly non-Unixy keyword > option syntax reminiscent of IBM > System/360 JCL (which had an elaborate > DD ‘Dataset Definition’ specification > for I/O devices) Still sounds pretty ambiguous, but then it says: > though the command filled a need, the interface design was clearly a prank. Heh :-)

Below is my sample output of ps command in solaris myuser 26856 0.0 0.1 1716368 118576 ? S Feb 18 2:17 /web/bea/platform1221/jdk1.8.0_221/bin/java -Djava.security.manager -Djava.security.policy=/web/bea/platform1221/wlserver/common/derby/derbyServer.policy -Dderby.system.home=/web/bea_apps/domains/common/db -classpath /web/bea/platform1221/wlserver/common/derby/lib/derby.jar:/web/bea/platform1221/wlserver/common/derby/lib/derbynet.jar:/web/bea/platform1221/wlserver/common/derby/lib/derbytools.jar:/web/bea/platform1221/wlserver/common/derby/lib/derbyoptionaltools.jar:/web/bea/platform1221/wlserver/common/derby/lib/derbyclient.jar org.apache.derby.drda.NetworkServerControl start myuser 934 0.0 0.0 11112 9064 ? S Jan 28 0:10 /web/bea_apps/apache/2.4.37/httpd-prod.viewlogs/bin/httpd -k start root 1621 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jan 24 0:00 zsched myuser 2140 0.0 0.0 14368 10152 ? S Feb 07 0:00 /bin/sh /web/bea_apps/domains/bin/startWebLogic.sh root 2369 0.0 0.0 15624 11168 ? S 21:15:17 0:00 /usr/share/centrifydc/sbin/sshd -R myuser 2372 0.0 0.0 6016 4752 pts/24 S 21:15:17 0:00 -ksh I tried -o but then it does not print arguments I wish to sort on whatever is left after discarding the below ahead of the actual command. Discard the below for each process before sorting on the rest root 1621 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Jan 24 0:00 I'm on : `$ uname -a SunOS myhost 5.11 11.4.28.82.3 sun4v sparc sun4v ` Here is the solaris ps man page: https://www.unix.com/man-page/OpenSolaris/1/ps/ Kindly suggest.

I was trying to find the naming convention for Linux commands. For commands like cp, rm, mv, etc it seems to be based on first and second last character like * move is mv * list is ls * copy is cp * change directory is cd, the first character of two words, which makes sense while sometimes ignoring vowels in some commands, which makes sense. On the other hand, the command mkdir is not based on the previous perception: "make directory" is mkdir which should be more like md. As we have naming convention for a variable in a bash script and another guide line (for example 1 , 2 ), I am wondering whether any similar convention exists for these commands.

When you watch presentations about Plan 9 and its acme editor you might notice that the name for _copy_ is _snarf_ (I wasn't able to find any meaningful explanation unfortunately). Why is it so? Is there a reason for that? Was it done to create a unique name for this functionality as _copy_ might not be the best name? --- ###References: - Wikipedia (link) : > Snarf, a term used for the "copy" operation in the Blit and Plan 9 windowing systems. - cat-v.org (link) : > There's another menu available with a mid-click; Cut and Paste are pretty self-explanatory, and Snarf is just the Plan 9 word for Copy. - 9fans mailing list (link) : > > Using either/both acme under Plan 9 and/or Mac OS X via plan9port, is > > there a "file" that can be opened in acme that displays the current > > contents of the acme snarf buffer? > > /dev/snarf So it looks like that there is something like a _snarf buffer_ and a file (obviously there must be a file for that buffer) called /dev/snarf. - 9term manual page (link) : > Characters typed on the keyboard replace the selected text; if this text is not empty, it is placed in a snarf buffer common to all windows but distinct from that of sam(1). > > (...) > > Editing operations are selected from a menu on button 2. The cut operation deletes the selected text from the screen and puts it in the snarf buffer; snarf copies the selected text to the buffer without deleting it; paste replaces the selected text with the contents of the buffer; and send copies the snarf buffer to just after the output point, adding a final newline if missing. Paste will sometimes and send will always place text after the output point; the text so placed will behave exactly as described above. Therefore when pasting text containing newlines after the output point, it may be prudent to turn on hold mode first. - _Exploring Acme_ tutorial (link) : > 'Snarf': called copy in most other editors - dictionary.com definitions of _snarf_ (link) : - > (informal) to eat or drink greedily - > (contemporary) to grab something in greed, esp. without permission - > (Unix) To fetch a file or set of files across a network. See also blast. - Inferno Part 2: Let's Make a Cluster! (link) : > The clipboard is called by the unfortunate name “snarf buffer” in Inferno and Plan 9.

I was interviewed for an internship and I got the same question as this one: http://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Which-2-letter-POSIX-command-is-different-from-all-the-others-QTN_498236.htm The answer is right, it is cd (as the interviewer told me so). I am very confused at this one. Why cd is different? I told the interviewer that it is different because it might not be implemented by the "shell", but I did not know what I was talking about at that time.