Users Guide

Glossary 159
expansion-card connector
A connector on the system's system board or riser board
for plugging in an expansion card.
extended memory
RAM above 1 MB. Most software that can use it, such
as the Microsoft
®
Windows
®
operating system,
requires that extended memory be under the control
of an XMM.
external cache memory
A RAM cache using SRAM chips. Because SRAM chips
operate at several times the speed of DRAM chips, the
microprocessor can retrieve data and instructions faster
from external cache memory than from RAM.
F
Abbreviation for Fahrenheit.
FAT
Acronym for file allocation table. FAT and FAT32 are
file systems that are defined as follows:
• FAT — The operating system maintains a table to
keep track of the status of various segments of disk
space used for file storage.
• FAT32 — A derivative of the FAT file system.
FAT32 supports smaller cluster sizes than FAT, thus
providing more efficient space allocation on
FAT32 drives.
Fibre Channel
A data transfer interface technology that allows for
high-speed I/O and networking functionality in a single
connectivity technology. The Fibre Channel Standard
supports several topologies, including Fibre Channel
Point-to-Point, Fibre Channel Fabric (generic
switching topology), and Fibre Channel Arbitrated
Loop (FC_AL).
firmware
Software (programs or data) that has been written onto
read-only memory (ROM). Firmware can boot and
operate a device. Each controller contains firmware
which helps provide the controller's functionality.
format
To prepare a hard drive or diskette for storing files.
An unconditional format deletes all data stored on
the disk.
FSMO
Abbreviation for Flexible Single Master Operation.
FTP
Abbreviation for file transfer protocol.
GB
Abbreviation for gigabyte(s). A gigabyte equals
1024 megabytes or 1,073,741,824 bytes.
gcc
Abbreviation for GNU C complier.
GNU
Acronym for GNU’s Not UNIX
®
. GNU software is
published under the GPL open-source license.
GPG
Abbreviation for GNU Privacy Guard.
GUI
Acronym for graphical user interface.
GUID
Acronym for Globally Unique Identifier.
h
Abbreviation for hexadecimal. A base-16 numbering
system, often used in programming to identify
addresses in the system's RAM and I/O memory
addresses for devices. The sequence of decimal
numbers from 0 through 16, for example, is expressed
in hexadecimal notation as: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A,
B, C, D, E, F, 10. In text, hexadecimal numbers are
often followed by h.