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BIOS
Acronym for basic input/output system. Your system's
BIOS contains programs stored on a flash memory chip.
The BIOS controls the following:
•
Communications between the microprocessor and
peripheral devices, such as the keyboard and the
video adapter
•
Miscellaneous functions, such as system messages
bit
The smallest unit of information interpreted by your
system.
BMC
Abbreviation for baseboard management controller,
which is a controller that provides the intelligence in
the IPMI structure.
boot routine
When you start your system, it clears all memory,
initializes devices, and loads the operating system.
Unless the operating system fails to respond, you can
reboot (also called warm boot) your system by pressing
<Ctrl><Alt><Del>; otherwise, you must perform a
cold boot by pressing the reset button or by turning the
system off and then back on.
bootable diskette
You can start your system from a diskette. To make a
bootable diskette on a system running Windows, insert
a diskette in the diskette drive, type sys a: at the
command line prompt, and press <Enter>. Use this
bootable diskette if your system will not boot from the
hard drive.
bus
An information pathway between the components of a
system. Your system contains an expansion bus that
allows the microprocessor to communicate with
controllers for all the various peripheral devices
connected to the system. Your system also contains an
address bus and a data bus for communications
between the microprocessor and RAM.
Glossary
88
byte
Eight contiguous bits of information, the basic data
unit used by your system.
cache
A fast storage area that keeps a copy of data or
instructions for quicker data retrieval. For example,
your system's BIOS may cache ROM code in faster
RAM. Or, a disk-cache utility may reserve RAM in
which to store frequently accessed information from
your system's disk drives; when a program makes a
request to a disk drive for data that is in the cache, the
disk-cache utility can retrieve the data from RAM faster
than from the disk drive.
CD-ROM
Abbreviation for compact disc read-only memory. CD
drives use optical technology to read data from CDs.
CDs are read-only storage devices; you cannot write
new data to a CD with standard CD drives.
CHAP
Acronym for Challenge-Handshake Authentication
Protocol, an authentication scheme used by PPP
servers to validate the identity of the originator of the
connection upon connection or any time later.
CLI
Abbreviation for command line interface.
Command
The combination of an option and argument or just an
option if no argument is required, such as in the
following command line instances:
utilname --option
utilname --option=argument
command line instance
A series of valid commands, options, and arguments
typed in the command line. For example, the DTK
utility name and all necessary options and arguments
as they are entered through the OS shell:
A:>utilname --option --option=argument
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