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Linux Dictionary:
P-code (Pseudo-code) Language
A type of Interpreted language. P-code languages are something of a hybrid, falling between compiled languages and interpreted languages in the way they execute. Like an interpreted language, P-code programming is converted to a binary form automatically when it is run, rather than having to be compiled. However, unlike a compiled language the executable binary file is stored in pseudo-code, not machine language. In addition, unlike an Interpreted language, the program does not have to be converted to binary each time it is run. After it is converted to P-code the first time, the pseudo-code version is used for each additional execution. P-code languages (and thus their programs) tend to be slower than compiled languages and programs but faster than interpreted languages, and they generally have authorization to some low-level operating system functions but not direct hardware access. They do not require sometimes-expensive compilers, are often included along with operating systems, and some p-code languages are easier to program than compiled languages. Examples of Pcode languages are Java, Python and REXX/Object REXX. From I-gloss
P-code language
They are like compiled languages in that the source is translated to a compact binary form which is what you actually execute, but that form is not machine code. Instead it's pseudocode (or p-code), which is usually a lot simpler but more powerful than a real machine language. When you run the program, you interpret the p-code. Important p-code languages include Python and Java. See Compiled language and Interpreted language. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
PA-RISC Linux
On December 11, 2001 the PA-RISC Linux development community announced version 0.9.3, the latest version of Linux for computers using Hewlett Packard's PA-RISC processor. This release is the latest in a series representing several years of work by developers in the Free Software community including developers from The Debian Project, Hewlett Packard, ESIEE, and Linuxcare. From LWN Distribution List
Pluggable Authentication Modules. A suite of shared libraries that determine how a user will be authenticated. For example, conventionally UNIX users authenticate themselves by supplying a password at the password prompt after they have typed their name at the login prompt. In many circumstances, such as internal access to workstations, this simple form of authentication is considered sufficient. In other cases, more information is warranted. If a user wants to log in to an internal system from an external source, like the Internet, more or alternative information may be required, perhaps a one-time password. PAM provides this type of capability and much more. Most important, PAM modules allow you to configure your environment with the necessary level of security. From Linux System Security
PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules)
A replaceable user authentication module for system security, which allows programs to be written without knowing which authentication scheme will be used. This allows a module to be replaced later with a different module without requiring rewriting the software. From I-gloss
Password Authentication Protocol: The usual method of user authentication used on the internet: sending a username and password to a server where they are compared with a table of authorized users. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
PAP (Password authentication Protocol)
Authentication mechinisms used after logging in using PPP. From Rute-Users-Guide
PC (Personal Computer)
A generic term used to describe many kinds of small format personal computer systems found at schools, homes, and offices. Sometimes identified by the speed of the central processing board ('486, 68040, etc.). Sometimes used to distinguish Intel-based personal computers from others, such as Macintoshes, etc. From Glossary of Distance Education and Internet Terminology
PCF fonts
A variety of bitmapped fonts to be used with the X Window System. From I-gloss
PCI vendor ID and device ID
PCI supports the useful concept that every vendor and device have unique hex IDs. For instance, Intel has chosen to represent themselves by the completely random number 0x8086 as their vendor ID. PCI cards will provide their IDs on request. You will see numerical values listed in the output of lspci, scanpci, and cat /proc/pci, especially if the respective utility cannot look up the vendor name from the ID number. The file /usr/share/pci.ids ( /usr/share/misc/pci.ids on Debian) from the pciutils package contains a complete table of all IDs and their corresponding names. The kudzu package also has a table /usr/share/kudzu/pcitable containing the information we are really looking for: ID to kernel module mappings. This enables you to use the intended scientific method for locating the correct PCI module from the kernel's /proc/pci data. The file format is easy to understand, and as an exercise you should try writing a shell script to do the lookup automatically. From Rute-Users-Guide
PCM (Pulse code modulation)
A technique used to transform an incoming analog signal into a noise-free, digital equivalent. In multimedia, PCM us used to sample sounds digitally. From QUECID
Public Domain. Supposedly, the "public" owns the copyright. PD SW is the only SW rightly called "free SW". Note that derivations of PD SW need not remain PD. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
Primary Domain Controler. This stores security and user account info for a domain. It manages all aspects of user/domain interaction. A domain has one PDC and can have multiple BDCs. BDCs hold backup copies of the PDC's info and are occasionally synchronized with the PDC. Both PDCs and BDCs can perform some tasks like user authentication. Often, a main site will have a PDC and a BDC (which can share the PDC's load for certain tasks) and remote sites will BDCs to handle certain tasks locally. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
PDF (Portable Document Format) files
Binary files created with Adobe Acrobat or other programs capable of producing output in this format. Used for producing operating system-independent documents, which can be viewed using Acrobat Reader or other programs, including Web browsers equipped with an Acrobat Reader plug-in. From I-gloss
PEM (Privacy Enhanced E-mail)
Of historical interest only, PEM was the first Internet standard for encrypting/signing e-mail. It later evolved into S/MIME. Contrast: Core components of PEM influenced later standards such as SSL. For example, the certificates used by some SSL implementations end in the suffix ".pem". Contrast: PEM and PGP are functionaly similar as far as e-mail encryption is concerned. The main difference is that PEM is based upon PKI standards like X.509 certificates, whereas PGP uses more ad hoc technologies. The frameworks are completely incompatible, so that an e-mail encrypted using one system cannot be decrypted using the other. The basic difference in the framework is that PEM uses X.509 hierarchy of certificate authorities, whereas PGP uses a more distributed "web of trust". From Hacking-Lexicon
PERL is a popular scripting language. PERL is so popular because: It runs on all platforms (UNIX, Windows, etc.) It easily parses text files and generates reports. It is easily to learn. Supports a large library of utilities to work from. Easily integrated into web-servers for CGI It is open-source Key point: v5 of PERL has the concept of "tainted" input that cannot be passed raw to the operating system without preprocessing. This is an amazingly useful feature that solves the majority of input validation problems in CGI scripts. Key point: A frequent misconfiguration is putting a PERL executable directly in the cgi-bin directory, allowing remote access of it. From Hacking-Lexicon
PERL (Practical Extraction and Report Language)
In UNIX an interpreted scripting language that is specifically designed for scanning text files, extracting information from these files, and preparing reports summarizing this information. Written by Larry Wall, pert is widely used to create Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts that handle the output of HTML forms. See HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and interpreter. From QUECID
PGP (Pretty Good Privacy)
A high-security, public-key data encryption program for UNIX/Linux and other operating systems. From I-gloss
short for PHonebook, a PH client program can be used to access a QI (CCSO Nameserver) database. QI databases are generally used to store phone books, timetables, and other forms of public information. From KADOWKEV
The Platform for Internet Content Selection. Proposed & developed in 1996-7 as a means for providing content information (metadata). Originally, it was designed with censorship of the Internet a hotly debated issue and it was primarily conceived as a way to assist parents and teachers monitor and control what children accessed. In later versions it also facilitates use of digital signatures and other metadata. From Faculty-of-Education
PING (Packet Internet Groper)
A diagnostic utlity program that is commonly used to determine whether a computer is properly connected to the Internet. From QUECID
PKCS (RSA's Public-Key Cryptography Standards)
A series of documents that were part of RSA's commercial toolkit. Their popularity was such that they become part of many official standard, include S/MIME and SSL. PKCS #1 - RSA Encryption and Signature Among other things, it defines details like how to pad messages. PKCS #3 - Diffie-Hellman Defines ASN.1 structures and algorithsm for DH key agreement PKCS #5 - Password-based Encryption Defines how to hash a password into a symmetric key. PKCS #7 - Cryptographic Message Syntax Standard (RFC 2315) Defines the structure of the digital envelope. Conceptually, it is a e-mail envelope that wraps an encrypted or signed message. However, the framework is used in places outside of e-mail as well. Contrast: PKCS7 is based upon PEM (Privacy Enhanced E-mail), RFC 1422. Essentially, PKCS7 is simply a PEM email in raw binary form without the headers/footers attached. S/MIME, a later standard than PEM, is simply a different wrapper around the PKCS7 envelope that conforms to the MIME standards. PKCS #10 - Certification Request Syntax Standard Used by Netscape and Microsoft web browsers, SSL libraries, ANSI X9.30. PKCS #11 - Cryptographic Token Interface Standard Abstract API for smart cards. From Hacking-Lexicon
PKI (Public Key Infrastructure)
PKI is the next wave of cryptography. Traditional cryptography (since the time of the ancient Greeks) has been based upon the concept of the "shared secret" (such as a password). This was good, but it suffered from the problem of having to communicate that secret among those people who should know it -- anybody who knew the secret could forge messages to anybody else or decrypt messages intended for other people. In 1970, a new technology called "asymmetric" cryptography was discovered in which a pair of keys could be used: one for encryption-only, and the other for decryption-only. The key used to encrypt could not decrypt, and vice versa. This peculiar mathematical property was discovered to be fantastically useful. For example, you can publish one of the keys to everyone in the world, who can then use it to encrypt a message to you that only you can decrypt. For this reason, the technology is better known as public-key cryptography. The technology works in the other direction as well. This means that you could encrypt a message with your private-key and send it out, and everyone with your public-key will know that it could only have come from you, because only you know your private-key. This authenticates that you are who you say you are. These and other properties provide solutions to a wide number of longstanding issues with cryptography. The various uses for public-keys have been bundled together in what is known as a new cryptographic infrastructure: PKI. Key point: PKI consists of: certificates A public and/or private key is stored in a file called a "certificate". It also includes identification information as to who the own of the certificate is, as well as a signature by a CA validating that the data hasn't been forged. Certificate Authorities (CA) Certificates are issued by a Certificate Authority, who usually will sign the certificate as well as provide some revocation facilities. Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs) If the private-key is compromised (i.e. inadvertently made public), then the certificate containing that key needs to be "revoked". That essentially means the CA who assigned the certificate posts the certificate on its website. This allows people to publicly check this fact. repositories (e.g. LDAP directories) So that public-keys for people can be found. Uses: PKI (public-keys, certificates, etc.) is used in: S/MIME Secure e-mail. PGP Also secure e-mail. Smart card SSH SSL IPsec From Hacking-Lexicon
PLD is a Linux distribution made mainly in Poland and by Poles. It has many interesting features. Some of the web site is in English. From LWN Distribution List
PLD RescueCD
PLD RescueCD is a bootable disk that contains a live Linux distribution based on PLD Linux with a 2.4.20 modular kernel. This version uses transparent compression to fit about 130 MB of software onto a single mini CD 50 MB in usable form. These images are small enough to fit on most business card-sized CD-ROMs (approx. 50MB), but can be burned onto any standard CD-R or CD-RW, as well. PLD RescueCD can be used to rescue ailing machines, perform intrusion post-mortems, act as a temporary secure linux-based workstation (using ssh, vpn connecting to remote host - other networking clients are also supported), install PLD Linux, and perform many other as yet unimagined tasks. Initial version 1.00 was released April 6, 2003. Version 1.01 was released June 17, 2003. From LWN Distribution List
PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
PNG is a graphics format specifically designed for use on the World Wide Web. PNG enable compression of images without any loss of quality, including high-resolution images. Another important feature of PNG is that anyone may create software that works with PNG images without paying any fees - the PNG standard is free of any licensing costs. From Matisse
POP (Point of Presence, also Post Office Protocol)
Two commonly used meanings: Point of Presence and Post Office Protocol. A Point of Presence usually means a city or location where a network can be connected to, often with dial up phone lines. So if an Internet company says they will soon have a POP in Belgrade, it means that they will soon have a local phone number in Belgrade and/or a place where leased lines can connect to their network. A second meaning, Post Office Protocol refers to a way that e-mail client software such as Eudora gets mail from a mail server. When you obtain an account from an Internet Service Provider (ISP) you almost always get a POP account with it, and it is this POP account that you tell your e-mail software to use to get your mail. Another protocol called IMAP is replacing POP for email. From Matisse
POP (Post Office Protocol)
An Internet electronic mail standard that specifies how an Internet-connected computer can function as a mail-handling agent. Messages arrive at a user's electronic mailbox, which is housed on the service provider's comuter. From this central storage point, you can access your mail from different computers - a networked workstation in the office as well as a PC at home. In either case, a POP-compatible electronic mail program, which runs on your workstation or PC, establishes a connection with the POP server, and detects that new mail has arrived. You can then download the mail to the workstation or computer, and reply to it, print it, or store it, as you prefer. From QUECID
POP3 (Post Office Protocol v3)
This is the most popular protocol for picking up e-mail from a server. The e-mail client program will open a connection to port 110 on the server, then pull down each e-mail message from the server. Key point: Since e-mail is one of the most popular services on the Internet, there are a huge number of different implementations of POP3 services. From Hacking-Lexicon
Portable Operating System Interface: a suite of applications program interface standards to provide for the portability of source code applications where operating systems services are required. POSIX is based on the UNIX (tm adminstrated by X/Open) Operating System, and is the basis for the X/Open specifications of The Open Group. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface for UNIX)
A set of programming interface standards governing how to write application source code so that the applications are portable between operating systems. POSIX is based on UNIX and is the basis for the X/Open specification of The Open Group. From I-gloss
POST (Power-On Self-Test)
Internal testing performed when you start or reset your computer. Encoded in read-only memory (ROM) the POST program first checks the microprocessor by having it perform a few simple operations. Then it reads the CMOS ROM, which stores the amount of memory and type of disk drives in your system. Next, the POST writes, then reads, various data patterns to each byte of memory (you can watch the bytes count off on-screen and often end the test with a keystroke); Finally, the POST communicates with every device; you see the keyboard and drive lights flash and the printer resets, for example. The BIOS continues with hardware testing, then looks in drive A for an operating system if drive A isn't found, it looks in drive C. See basic input/output system (BIOS) and boot sector. From QUECID
Postscript Printer Description specification. Adobe's spec of a standard virtual printer. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
The process ID of the shell's parent. From Rute-Users-Guide
the processes Parent PID, the creator of the process. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
An acronym for Point-to-Point-Protocol, an advanced serial packet protocol similar to SLIP. From KADOWKEV
PPP (Point of Presence)
Actual site of an ISP or other service. From Glossary of Distance Education and Internet Terminology
PPP (Point to Point Protocol)
One of the two standards for directly connecting computers to the Internet via dialup telephone connections (the other is SLIP). Unlike the older SLIP protocol, PPP incorporates superior data negotiation, compression, and error correction. However, these features add overhead to data and transmission, and are unnecessary when both the sending and receiving modems offer hardware error correction and on-the-fly data compression. See Serial Linux Internet Protocol (SLIP). From QUECID
The most common protocol used to connect home computers to the Internet over regular phone lines. Most well known as a protocol that allows a computer to use a regular telephone line and a modem to make TCP/IPconnections and thus be really and truly on the Internet. From Matisse
The standard protocol for connection via a modem to an ISP. The term "point-to-point" is used to contrast this technology with preceding techniques that where based upon "multi-point" communication. For example, the popular Ethernet technology is used to connect many computers together in a single local network. Key point: Sniffing PPP dial-up connections is very hard and is virtually never done. From Hacking-Lexicon
This provides fairly high speed direct Internet connectivity using a modem. Unlike earlier modem connection methods (which many people still use) PPP is not limited by the software that exists on the host computer. With PPP, all client software (such as Netscape) runs on the local computer. From Faculty-of-Education
PPPoE
A technique for the encapsulation of PPP streams inside of Ethernet frames. This technology is being deployed by high-speed Internet access providers (cable modems, xDSL, etc.) in order to decouple the supply of bandwidth from ISP services. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol - a networking technology that allows the use of the Internet as a secure virtual private network (VPN). From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
A high-level programming language used in artificial intelligence research and applications, particularly expert systems. PROLOG, short for PROgramming in LOGic, is a declarative language; rather than tell the computer what procedure to follow to solve a problem, the programmer describes the problem to be solved. The language resembles the query language of a database management system such as Standard Query Language (SQL) in that you can use PROLOG to ask a question such as, "Is Foster City in Californian's But an important difference exists between PROLOG and a database management system (DBMS). A database contains information you can retrieve; a PROLOG program, in contrast, contains knowledge, from which the program can draw inferences about what is true or false. From QUECID
PXES Linux Thin Client
PXES will convert any complaint hardware into a versatile thin client capable of accessing any Microsoft Terminal Server through RDP protocol. (Future versions will include XDM, VNC and other protocols). This thin client boots from the network. Version 0.4 was released March 27, 2002. Version 0.5-final was released September 3, 2002. Version 0.5.1-41 was released May 15, 2003. From LWN Distribution List
The fundamental unit of communication on the Internet. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
Packet Switching
The method used to move data around on the Internet. In packet switching,all the data coming out of a machine is broken up into chunks, each chunk has the address of where it came from and where it is going. This enables chunks of data from many different sources to co-mingle on the same lines, and be sorted and directed along different routes by special machines along the way. This way many people can use the same lines at the same time. You might think of several caravans of trucks all using the same road system. to carry materials. From Matisse
Packet filtering
The action a device takes to selectively control the flow of data to and from a network. Packet filters allow or block packets, usually while routing them from one network to another (most often from the Internet to an internal network, and vice-versa). To accomplish packet filtering, you set up rules that specify what types of packets (those to or from a particular IP address or port) are to be allowed and what types are to be blocked. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
The name for the Linux equivalent of the Windows Taskbar. From I-gloss
Refers to the concept of speeding-up the execution of a program by dividing the program into multiple fragments that can execute simultaneously, each on its own processor. A program being executed across N processors might execute N times faster than it would using a single processor. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
Identity beween data sent by one modem and data received by another modem. Error-correction protocols use parity checking and parity bits to determine if data needs to be re-sent. From QUECID
To break down into components. Spreadsheet progams, for example, often have parsing features that will break ASCII data into parts that will fit into cells. From QUECID
A contiguous section of a disk drive that is treated by the operating system as a physical drive. Thus, one disk drive can have several drive letters assigned to it. From I-gloss
A section of the storage area of a bard disk created for organizational purposes or to separate different operating systems. A partition is created during initial preparation of the hard disk, before the disk is formatted. In MS-DOS, every hard disk has at least one DOS partition (Version of MS-DOS before version 4.0 required a separate partition for each I'm of disk space). Each partition is treated by DOS as though it were a separate drive. Users may partition their drives to separate one operating system from another, but utility programs such as MultiDisk, are available that let you create several system partitions. See directory and subdirectory. From QUECID
A high-level, procedural proramming language that encourages programmers to write well-structured, modular programs that take advantage of modern control structures and lack spaghetti code. Pascal has gained wide acceptance as a teaching and application-development language, though most professional programmers prefer C or C++. Pascal is available in interpreted and compiled versions. A major disadvantage of Pascal is that (its standard version (Standard Pascal) contains many shortcomings. The language's inventor, Nicklaus Wirth, has covered a new language, Modula-2 as a successor to Pascal, that fixes some of the language's problems, and Borland International's Turbo Pascal makes Pascal easy for personal computer owners to use. See BASIC and FORTRAN From QUECID
An Algol-descended language designed by Niklaus Wirth on the CDC 6600 around 1967-68 as an instructional tool for elementary programming. This language, designed primarily to keep students from shooting themselves in the foot and thus extremely restrictive from a general-purpose-programming point of view, was later promoted as a general-purpose tool and, in fact, became the ancestor of a large family of languages including Modula-2 and Ada. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
n. An Algol-descended language designed by Niklaus Wirth on the CDC 6600 around 1967-68 as an instructional tool for elementary programming. This language, designed primarily to keep students from shooting themselves in the foot and thus extremely restrictive from a general-purpose-programming point of view, was later promoted as a general-purpose tool and, in fact, became the ancestor of a large family of languages including Modula-2 and Ada (see also bondage-and-discipline language). The hackish point of view on Pascal was probably best summed up by a devastating (and, in its deadpan way, screamingly funny) 1981 paper by Brian Kernighan (of K&R fame) entitled "Why Pascal is Not My Favorite Programming Language", which was turned down by the technical journals but circulated widely via photocopies. It was eventually published in "Comparing and Assessing Programming Languages", edited by Alan Feuer and Narain Gehani (Prentice-Hall, 1984). Part of his discussion is worth repeating here, because its criticisms are still apposite to Pascal itself after ten years of improvement and could also stand as an indictment of many other bondage-and-discipline languages. At the end of a summary of the case against Pascal, Kernighan wrote: 9. There is no escape This last point is perhaps the most important. The language is inadequate but circumscribed, because there is no way to escape its limitations. There are no casts to disable the type-checking when necessary. There is no way to replace the defective run-time environment with a sensible one, unless one controls the compiler that defines the "standard procedures". The language is closed. People who use Pascal for serious programming fall into a fatal trap. Because the language is impotent, it must be extended. But each group extends Pascal in its own direction, to make it look like whatever language they really want. Extensions for separate compilation, FORTRAN-like COMMON, string data types, internal static variables, initialization, octal numbers, bit operators, etc., all add to the utility of the language for one group but destroy its portability to others. I feel that it is a mistake to use Pascal for anything much beyond its original target. In its pure form, Pascal is a toy language, suitable for teaching but not for real programming. Pascal has since been almost entirely displaced (by C) from the niches it had acquired in serious applications and systems programming, but retains some popularity as a hobbyist language in the MS-DOS and Macintosh worlds. From Jargon Dictionary
A code used to gain access (login) to a locked system. Good passwords contain letters and non-letters and are not simple combinations such as virtue7. A good password might be: 5%df(29) But don't use that one! From Matisse
A security tool used to identify authorized users of a program or network and to define their privileges, such as read-only, reading and writing, or file copying. From QUECID
A quick fix, in the form of one or more program statements, added to a program to correct bugs or to enhance the program's capabilities. From QUECID
Peanut Linux
Peanut Linux is only a 99 Mb. download, packed with fun and useful applications. A small disk distribution. From LWN Distribution List
PeeWeeLinux
PeeWeeLinux is an ongoing development effort to provide an environment that makes the configuration and installation of a Linux operating system on an embedded platform as easy and painless as possible.> PeeWeeLinux v0.61.1 was released February 27, 2002. From LWN Distribution List
Practical Extraction and Report Language - An interpreted language developed by Larry Wall (, author of patch(1) and rn(1)) and distributed over Usenet. Superficially resembles awk, but is much hairier, including many facilities reminiscent of sed(1) and shells and a comprehensive Unix system-call interface. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
Perl (Practical Extraction and Report Language) A common scripting/programming language. It is often used on UNIX/Linux Web servers for generating CGI scripts. From I-gloss
The authority to read and write files and directories, and execute programs. Varying permission levels can be assigned by the Superuser, or root operator, on a file-by-file, directory-by-directory basis or by account name (User ID). From I-gloss
Permission Block
This is part of the inode table's entries for each file and directory. The permission block can be shown for files and directores by using "ls -al" - the long output directory listing and is represented by 10 characters. The first character is a file type indicator differentiating between a file and a directory. The other nine characters refer to access permissions for the owner, group and world. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
Phat Linux
In late 1998, Phat Linux created a simple, easy to use Linux operating system that ran on a Windows 95/98 partition. Phat Linux v3.3 comes with lots of popular software, including KDE 2.0, XFree86 3.3.6, Netscape, and much much more. From LWN Distribution List
Phayoune Secure Linux
Phayoune-Desktop 0.0.11 was the most recent version when it was added to list July 8, 2002. The initial release of Phayoune Firewall was 0.3.3, dated December 25, 2002. Phayoune Firewall 0.3.6 was released May 21, 2003. Thailand based distribution. From LWN Distribution List
Phrealon Linux
Phrealon is a bootable Linux CD based on Slackware Linux 8.0 designed to allow the easy imaging of multiple workstations. It utilizes the updcast set of Linux tools to accomplish this. The initial release, version 0.80, was released November 7, 2002. Version 0.82 was released February 27, 2003. A CD-based distribution. From LWN Distribution List
An electronic mail program for UNIX computer systems, unlike predecessor programs, such as Elm, the program contains its own easy-to-use full screen editor, thus freeing users from dependence on the not-very-easy-to-use default editors on UNIX systems (such as emacs and vi ). (The name "Pine" is actually an acronym. of the self-referential sort: Pine Is Not Elm.) From QUECID
A network program which sends UDP packets to a host, and listens for responses. Used to check if a machine on the Internet is alive and reachable, and measure the Round Trip Time (RTT) between the local and remote host. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
PingOO Linux
French based distribution. This a Debian based distribution intended for servers. From LWN Distribution List
Pingwinek GNU/Linux
Pingwinek is a Linux distribution made in Poland. The main desktop is GNOME 2.2. It supports only Polish and English languages. Version 0.23 was released May 22, 2003. From LWN Distribution List
A sequence of programs through which a stream of data passes. Each stage or filter performs some operation on the data. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
Piping Symbol
The | keyboard character (the Shift-Backslash character above the Enter key on a typical 101-key keyboard). It is often used to feed the output from one command or program to another. For example, history | grep mcopy sends the contents of the .bash_history file (via the history command) to the grep program, searching for the string "mcopy". (Also, see Append Symbol and Redirection Symbol.) From I-gloss
Plamo Linux
This looks like a Slackware based distribution. Japanese distribution From LWN Distribution List
Platform is a term usually used to describe operating systems. Typically, people will refer to an IBM compatible DOS environment as a PC platform or a Macintosh System environment as a MAC platform. From Faculty-of-Education
A (usually small) piece of software that adds features to a larger piece of software. Common examples are plug-ins for the Netscape. browser and web server. Adobe Photoshop. also uses plug-ins. From Matisse
PlumpOS
PlumpOS is a CD-based mini-openMosix/Linux distribution. Pop the CD into a 586+ computer and you have an instant openMosix node. It supports loading 3rd-party packages and adding custom kernels. It was originally a clone of Clump/os, but it turned into a complete rewrite. Version 6.9 RC1 was released March 27, 2003. A CD-based distribution. From LWN Distribution List
PocketLinux
Developed by Transvirtual Technologies, PocketLinux 1.0 was released January 18, 2001. Handhelds/PDA based distribution. From LWN Distribution List
Popmail
A program used to remotely read e-mail across a network, often used in conjunction with SLIP. The most commonly used version, Pop3, is described in RFC number 1081. From KADOWKEV
3 meanings. First and most generally, a place where information goes into or out of a computer, or both. E.g. the serial port on a personal computer is where a modem would be connected. From Matisse
On the Internet, port often refers to a number that is part of a URL, appearing after a colon (:) right after the domain name. Every service on an Internet server listens on a particular port number on that server. Most services have standard port numbers, e.g. Web servers normally listen on port 80. Services can also listen on non-standard ports, in which case the port number must be specified in a URL when accessing the server. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
Port/Ported/Porting
The process of taking a program written for one operating system platform and modifying it to run on another OS with similar functionality. There is generally little or no attempt to customize the program to take advantage of the unique capabilities of the new operating system, as opposed to optimizing an application for a specific operating system. From I-gloss
A term referring to software that is designed to be use on more than one operating system with only minor modifications and recompilation. From I-gloss
Usually used as a marketing term to described a Web site that is or is intended to be the first place people see when using the Web. Typically a "Portal site" has a catalog of web sites, a search engine, or both. A Portal site may also offer email and other service to entice people to use that site as their main "point of entry" (hence "portal") to the Web. From Matisse
Portugal From LWN Distribution List
A free SQL server run under the BSD license. From Rute-Users-Guide
A Page Description Language that gets its leverage by using a full programming language, rather than a series of low-level escape sequences, to describe an image to be printed on a laser printer or other output device (in this it parallels EMACS, which exploited a similar insight about editing tasks). It is also noteworthy for implementing on-the fly rasterization, from Bezier curve descriptions, of high-quality fonts at low (e.g. 300 dpi) resolution. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
A page description language developed by Adobe Systems that tells a printer how to display text or graphics on a printed page. From I-gloss
A sophisticated page description language (PDL) that's used for high-quality printing on laser printers and other high-resolution printing devices. Though Postscript is a programming language adn you can learn to write page descriptions in it, Postscript is usually invisible and automatic. Programs generate Postscript code that goes to the printer, where a Postscript interpreter follows the coded instructions to generate an image of the page precisely according to there instructions. A major benefit of Postscript is its device independence; you can print the Postscript code generated by an application on any printer with a Postscript interpreter. You can take Postscript files generated on your PC to a service bureaus which can print the document using expensive typesetting machines with resolutions of up to 2,400 dots per inch (dpi). See Postscript font, and Postscript printer. From QUECID
n. A Page Description Language (PDL), based on work originally done by John Gaffney at Evans and Sutherland in 1976, evolving through `JaM' (`John and Martin', Martin Newell) at XEROX PARC, and finally implemented in its current form by John Warnock et al. after he and Chuck Geschke founded Adobe Systems Incorporated in 1982. PostScript gets its leverage by using a full programming language, rather than a series of low-level escape sequences, to describe an image to be printed on a laser printer or other output device (in this it parallels EMACS, which exploited a similar insight about editing tasks). It is also noteworthy for implementing on-the fly rasterization, from Bezier curve descriptions, of high-quality fonts at low (e.g. 300 dpi) resolution (it was formerly believed that hand-tuned bitmap fonts were required for this task). Hackers consider PostScript to be among the most elegant hacks of all time, and the combination of technical merits and widespread availability has made PostScript the language of choice for graphical output. From Jargon Dictionary
PostScript Fonts
A wide variety of fonts that can be used with OS/2, MS Windows and the X Window System. Font files include those with .afm, .pfa and .pfb extensions. Sometimes called Adobe Type 1 fonts, or ATM (Adobe Type Manager) fonts. PostScript fonts typically require a PostScript-compatible printer. (Also, see BDF Fonts and TrueType Fonts.) From I-gloss
A single message entered into a network communications system. From Matisse
An executing program. (Also, see Multitasking and Multithreading.) From I-gloss
A list of instructions, written in a programming language, that a computer can execute so that the machine arts in a predetermined way. Synonymous with software. The world of computer programs can be divided into system programs, utility pograms, and application programs: * System programs include all the programs the computer requires to function effectively, including the operating system, memory management software, and command-line interpreters The MS-DOS operating system is an example of system software. * Utility programs include all the programs you can use to maintain the computer system. MS-DOS includes several utility programmed such as CHKDSK. Most users equip their systems with utility packages (such as Norton Utilities or PC Tools) that go beyond the basics that MS-DOS provides. * Application programs transform the computer into a tool for performing a specific kind of work, such as word processing, financial analysis (with an electronic spreadsheet), or desktop publishing. Additional software categories include programming languages, games, educational programs, and a variety of vertical market programs. See executable program, high-level programming language, and machine language. From QUECID
A formal set of standards, rules, or formats for exchanging data that assures uniformity between computers and applications. From Glossary of Distance Education and Internet Terminology
Formal descriptions of what format should be used for messages by two or more computers wishing to communicate. FTP and SMTP are examples of such protocols. From Faculty-of-Education
A Proxy Server sits in between a Client and the "real" Server that a Client is trying to use. Client's are sometimes configured to use a Proxy Server, usually an HTTP server. The clients makes all of it's requests from the Proxy Server, which then makes requests from the "real" server and passes the result back to the Client. Sometimes the Proxy server will store the results and give a stored result instead of making a new one (to reduce use of a Network). Proxy servers are commonly established on Local Area Networks. From Matisse
Proxy Servers
a type of firewall that allows indirect internet access. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
Proxyfloppy
Proxyfloppy is a floppy disk that contains a bootable Linux system with 3 different types of web proxy and some added tools. The goal is to make it simple and safe for people with an always-on Internet connection to turn their desktop into a anonymous proxy server during the time that the computer would normally go unused. Version 1.1 was released on February 15, 2002. From LWN Distribution List
PsiLinux
PsiLinux is a project to port Linux to a group of palmtops produced by Psion, and related machines such as the Geofox One. At present, working Linux systems can be installed on any of the Series 5, Series 5MX, Series 5MX-Pro, Revo (Revo+, Mako), Series 7 and netBook machines. Handhelds/PDA based distribution. From LWN Distribution List
Software that is available to be used and modified by anyone, for any purpose, and may even be incorporated for distribution in commercial software. Public domain software is not copyrighted, and no rights are retained by the author. (Also, see Open Source and Shareware.) From I-gloss
Public Key Encryption
A method of data encryption that involves two separate keys: a public key and a private key. Data encrypted with the public key can be decrypted only with the private key and vice versa. Typically, the public key is published and can be used to encrypt data sent to the holder of the private key, and the private key is used to sign data. From I-gloss
PyXML
PyXML is a package of libraries to process XML with Python. The distribution contains a validating XML parser, an implementation of the SAX and DOM programming interfaces, and an interface to the Expat parser. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
Pygmy Linux is small distribution of the Linux operating system, based on Slackware 7.1. PL use UMSDOS filesystem, it allows an user to install a fully functional operating system, that co-exists peacefully with DOS/Win9x on the same partition. PL is Internet ready, it supports connection via modem and network card. It is a console minilinux, so there are no X windows, Netscape or etc. From LWN Distribution List
/pi:'thon/ In the words of its author, "the other scripting language" (other than Perl, that is). Python's design is notably clean, elegant, and well thought through; it tends to attract the sort of programmers who find Perl grubby and exiguous. Python's relationship with Perl is rather like the BSD community's relationship to Linux - it's the smaller party in a (usually friendly) rivalry, but the average quality of its developers is generally conceded to be rather higher than in the larger community it competes with. There's a Python resource page at http://www.python.org. See also Guido. From Jargon Dictionary
An object-oriented p-code programming language. From I-gloss
a scripting language that is designed notably clean, elegant, and well thought through. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
p10cfgd
Remote configuration daemon for Gracilis Packeten. The 'p10cfgd' daemon provides support for the 'rmtcfg' command in the Gracilis Packeten amateur radio network packet switch. With this daemon, and appropriate entries in the non-volatile configuration memory of a Packeten, it is possible to have the switch load commands and information at boot time. Further, this daemon appends a command which sets the date and time in the clock on the Packeten. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Pascal to C translator P2c is a tool for translating Pascal programs into C. The input consists of a set of source files in any of the following Pascal dialects: HP Pascal, Turbo/UCSD Pascal, DEC VAX Pascal, Oregon Software Pascal/2, Macintosh Programmer's Workshop Pascal, Sun/Berkeley Pascal, Texas Instruments Pascal, Apollo Domain Pascal. Modula-2 syntax is also supported. Output is a set of .c and .h files that comprise an equivalent program in any of several dialects of C. Output code may be kept machine and dialect-independent, or it may be targeted to a specific machine and compiler. Most reasonable Pascal programs are converted into fully functional C which will compile and run with no further modifications, although p2c sometimes chooses to generate readable code at the expense of absolute generality. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
p3nfs
Mount Psion series 3[ac], 5 drives. The package lets you mount psion drives on your Debian box over a serial cable. You can access all the files from the psion with the usual commands like tar, cp, vi & co. Works with Psion series 3[ac], 5 machines. Haven't tested on a Sienna yet. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
p4fftwgel2
Library for computing Fast Fourier Transforms on Intel P4 This library computes Fast Fourier Transforms (FFT) in one or more dimensions. It is extremely fast. This package contains the documentation and the shared version of the libraries. To get the static library and the header files you need to install p4fftwgel-dev. This library uses the same interface as fftw so should be a drop-in replacement, but is currently limited to single precision only. The code is tuned for Intel P4 processors and can be as much as three times as fast as vanilla fftw. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
printer/plotter accounting information From whatis
register package user via mailagent From whatis
All data sent across the Internet is broken up into packets, sent individually across the network, and reassembled back into the original data at the other end. Analogy: Imagine looking at an automobile freeway during rush hour from an airplane. The freeway looks like a flowing river, but each individual car (packet) is really independent from all the others. While it looks like the cars on the freeway are going in the same direction, each car really has its own source and destination separate from the others around it. This is how Internet core routes look. Analogy: Now consider that a bunch of coworkers leave the office and go to a party. Each gets in his/her own car and drives to the party. Each person may take a slightly route, but they all end up together at the party. This demonstrates how data is broken up into individual packets, sent across the Internet (potentially following different routes), then reassembled back again at the destination. Key point: Conceptually, networking occurs at abstract layers well above the concept of packets. Users type in a URL, and the file is downloaded. By dealing with the raw packets themselves, hackers are frequently able to subvert communications in ways not detectable at these higher layers. Contrast: The term "packet switched network (PSN)" is used to describe the Internet, whereas the term "circuit switched network (CSN)" is used to contrast it with the traditional phone system. The key difference is that in the phone system, the route between two people is setup at the start, and each bit in the stream follows that route. On the Internet, each packet finds its own route through the system, so during a conversation, the packets can follow different paths, and indeed arrive out-of-order. Another key difference is latency. The phone system forwards each bit one at a time, so as soon as one arrives, it doesn't have to wait before forwarding it on. On the Internet, bits are bunched together before transmission. Each hop must wait and receive all the bits before forwarding any of them on. Each hop therefore adds a significant amount of delay. Gamers know this as the "ping" time. Key point: There are other technologies that use packets, not just the Internet. Before the Internet came along, X.25 networks were a popular form of packet-based communication (and indeed, X.25 formed the basis for many links on the nascent Internet). From Hacking-Lexicon
packet filter
In firewalls, packet filters are the technology most often used to control traffic. Every packet contains the following fields: source IP address (example: 192.0.2.156) destination IP address transport type (example: TCP=6, UDP=17, ICMP=1) source port (example: HTTP=80, DNS=53, FTP=21) destination port flags (example: SYN) This data is compared against "rules" within the firewall. A typical set of rules might be: BLOCK destination=192.0.2.x TCP flag=SYNALLOW destination=192.0.2.123 TCP destport=80 ALLOW destination=192.0.2.124 TCP destport=25 If our private network is 192.0.2.x, then the first rule above blocks all incoming TCP connections (though outbound connections would still be allowed). The following rules override the first, allowing access to the web-server at port 80 and access to the e-mail server at port 25. Key point: The basic stance of a company firewall is: blocks all UDP traffic except for DNS blocks all incoming TCP connections but allows all outgoing ones allows incoming connections to public HTTP, FTP, SMTP, and DNS servers located in a "DMZ". blocks all ICMP traffic except for those packets needed for path MTU discovery. This allow most access to the Internet for end-users and allows the Internet to access the public servers. It blocks everything else. Contrast: The word "dynamic packet filter" was coined to contrast with the normal "static filter" rules in a firewall described above. Dynamic rules are needed because: Ports are a poor way of identifying protocols (and getting poorer) Whereas most communication uses only outbound connections, some (like FTP) use multiple connections in both directions. In the case of FTP, the client creates an outbound connection to the server, then the server creates separate inbound connections in order to transfer files to the client. Static firewall rules would block this incoming connection, dynamic rules monitor the state and temporarily change the static rules just to allow that connection. An example of a "dynamic" rule is to solve the FTP problem is: Block all incoming connections, but if the user has established a connection to port 21 on a server, then allowing incoming TCP connection from the server port 20 to ports higher than 1024 on the client. Another type of "dynamic" rule is one where the firewall does protocol analysis at layers higher than TCP. To contrast with the example above, the firewall might analyze the FTP connection looking for the PORT command. (The "PORT" command is the FTP protocol whereby the client tells the server which port is has opened to receive a file on). Checkpoint calls this protocol analysis "stateful packet inspection" in their firewall. Other vendors do similar stuff, but call it different names. From Hacking-Lexicon
Chase Monsters in a Labyrinth You are Pacman, and you are supposed to eat all the small dots to get to the next level. You are also supposed to keep away from the ghosts, if they take you, you lose one life, unless you have eaten a large dot, then you can, for a limited amount of time, chase and eat the ghosts. There is also bonus available, for a limited amount of time. An X gives just points, but a little pacman gives an extra life. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Padding is the process of adding unused data to the end of a message in order to make it conform to a certain length. For example, block-ciphers often work on blocks that are 64-bits (8-bytes) long. Therefore, if you have a message that is 77-bytes long, you will need to "pad" it with an extra 3-bytes to make it an even 80-bytes in size (10-blocks). Key point: Padding is a regular feature of all crypto algorithms, including hashing and encryption. Some algorithms have been broken due to poor choices for padding. Most importantly, however, the size of the message can often reveal details about its contents. For example, let's assume a protocol whereby somebody accepts something with a simple message of "yes", but when it declines, it says "no" along with a reason why it was rejected. Therefore, even though the messages are encrypted, the "yes" will be a short message but the "no" will be a long message. From Hacking-Lexicon
opposite of more From whatis
palbart
An enhanced version of the PAL PDP8 assembler PALBART is an enhanced version of the pdp8 PAL assembler. This is a PDP8 cross assembler. Its useful for the users of SIMH or any other PDP8 emulator. The original source code is available at: http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/pdp8/index.html To quote that web page, "This enhancement was written by Gary Messenbrink to support BART's fleet of PDP-8 systems." From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Linux boot loader for parisc/hppa This package contains the parisc boot loader itself, plus palo which is the boot media management tool as lilo is for i386. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) is a system security tool which allows system administrators to set authentication policy without having to recompile programs which do authentication. From Mandrake 9.0 RPM
pam_krb5
The pam_krb5 module is a Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) thatcan be used with Linux-PAM and Kerberos 5. The pam_krb5 module supports password checking, ticket creation, optional TGT verification and conversion to Kerberos IV tickets. The pam_krb5afs module, for AFStokens, is also included in this package. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
pam_smb
The pam_smb module can be used to authenticate users using an external SMB server. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
A Newsreader uses GTK, looks like Forte Agent. Pan is a newsreader, loosely based on Agent and Gravity, which attempts to be pleasant to use for new and advanced users alike. It has all the typical features found in newsreaders and also supports offline newsreading, sophisticated filtering, multiple connections, and a number of extra features for power users and alt.binaries fans. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
This is PAN, a powerful and user-friendly USENET newsreader for GNOME. The latest info and versions of Pan can always be found at http://pan.rebelbase.com/. From Mandrake 9.0 RPM
The Gnome panel From whatis
A library to handle unicode strings as well as complex bidirectional or context dependent shaped strings. It is the next step on Gtk+ internationalization. From Mandrake 9.0 RPM
Pango is a system for layout and rendering of internationalized text. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
A framework for 3D graphics production Panorama will include modeling, rendering, post-processing, animating, etc. Functionally, it is structured as an API, composed by two dynamic libraries, and several plugins, that you can optionally load in runtime. A simple console mode front-end for this API is included in the package, that can load a scene description in one of the supported scene languages and then outputs a single image file in any of the supported graphic formats. Its main features are: - Plugin architecture. Most elements in the system are plugin's. This means components are loaded as needed, and can be substituted, added, etc without recompiling anything. This will let third parties distribute their plugins outside the main distribution. - Object oriented scene description language, with classes, inheritance, etc. It's easy to use, and has a simple syntax. - Scene language is a plugin itself, so any other scene language can be used instead. - Several rendering methods are possible without any other change in input scene file. Currently supported methods are raytracing and zbuffer, but other methods are being tested and will be incorporated in the future. - A postprocessing system lets you apply filters to the whole image after it has been generated by renderer. - Similarly, there are object filters, that you can apply to an object in the rendering process. This means a new class of effects (e.g. a cartoon-like object in a photorealistic scene). - Materials have a BSDF (Bidirectional Scattering Distribution Function) that encapsulates its properties with respect to the light. Now, only Lambertian and Phong BSDF's are implemented, but more sophisticated ones will follow, like Schlick's, Ward's, etc. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Objective-C library for mail handling (development files) Pantomime provides a set of Objective-C classes that model a mail system. Pantomime can be seen as a JavaMail 1.2 clone written in Objective-C. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
paperconf
print paper configuration informations From whatis
paperconfig
configure the system default paper size From whatis
Paragraph reformatter Greatly enhanced fmt type program by Adam M. Costello. Can be used within vi or other editor to automatically reformat text in a variety of ways. Perfect for use with email & usenet messages as it correctly handles multiple levels of quoting characters. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
paragui-themes
Standard themes for the widget set library ParaGUI is a cross-platform high-level application framework and GUI (graphical user interface) library. ParaGUI's is completely based on the Simple DirectMedia Layer. This package contains standard themes files for the paragui library. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
parchive
Use PAR files to reconstruct missing parts of multi-part archives This utility applies the data-recovery capability concepts of RAID-like systems to the posting and recovery of multi-part archives on Usenet. It supports the 'Reed-Soloman Code' implementation that allows for recovery of any 'X' volumes for 'X' parity volumes present. It is popularly used on USENET postings, but is not limited to this use. Upstream source: http://parchive.sourceforge.net/ From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pari-extra
PARI/GP Computer Algebra System extra data files PARI/GP is a widely used computer algebra system designed for fast computations in number theory (factorizations, algebraic number theory, elliptic curves...), but also contains a large number of other useful functions to compute with mathematical entities such as matrices, polynomials, power series, algebraic numbers, etc., and a lot of transcendental functions. PARI is also available as a C library to allow for faster computations. Originally developed by Henri Cohen and his co-workers (Universiti Bordeaux I, France), PARI is now under the GPL and maintained by Karim Belabas (Universiti Paris XI, France) with the help of many volunteer contributors. This package contains extra data files for PARI/GP, currently the Galois resolvants for the polgalois function. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pari-gp
PARI/GP Computer Algebra System binaries. PARI/GP is a widely used computer algebra system designed for fast computations in number theory (factorizations, algebraic number theory, elliptic curves...), but also contains a large number of other useful functions to compute with mathematical entities such as matrices, polynomials, power series, algebraic numbers, etc., and a lot of transcendental functions. PARI is also available as a C library to allow for faster computations. Originally developed by Henri Cohen and his co-workers (Universiti Bordeaux I, France), PARI is now under the GPL and maintained by Karim Belabas (Universiti Paris XI, France) with the help of many volunteer contributors. This package contains the GP calculator. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
parity bit
In asynchronous communications and primary storage, an extra bit added to a data word for parity checking. From QUECID
parity checking
A technique used to detect memory or data communication errors. The computer adds up the number of bits in a one-byte data item, and if the parity bit setting disagrees with the sum of the other bits, the computer reports an error. Parity-checking schemes work by storing a one-bit digit (0 or 1) that indicates whether the sum of the bits in a data item is odd or even. When the data item is read from memory or received by another computer, a panty check occurs. If the parity check reveals that the parity bit is incorrect, the computer displays an error message. See even parity and odd parity. From QUECID
parity error
An error that a computer reports when parity checking reveals that one or more parity bits is incorrect, indicating a probable error in data processing or data transmission. From QUECID
A program that breaks large units of data into smaller, more easily interpreted pieces. For example, a will browser reads documents prepared with a markup language (such as HTML). The markup language identiies the parts of the document (such as document headings, bulleted lists, or body text), but says nothing about how those portions of the document should appear on-screen. The parser reads the tagged text and formats the various portions of the document for on-screen display. See Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). From QUECID
parted
The GNU Parted disk partition resizing program GNU Parted is a program that allows you to create, destroy, resize, move and copy hard disk partitions. This is useful for creating space for new operating systems, reorganising disk usage, and copying data to new hard disks. This package contains the Parted binary and manual page. Parted currently supports DOS, Mac, Sun, BSD, GPT and PC98 disklabels/partition tables, as well as a 'loop' (raw disk) type which allows use on RAID/LVM. Filesystems supported are ext2, ext3, FAT (FAT16 and FAT32) and linux-swap. Parted can also detect HFS (Mac OS), JFS, NTFS, ReiserFS, UFS and XFS filesystems, but cannot create/remove/resize/check these filesystems yet. The nature of this software means that any bugs could cause massive data loss. While there are no known bugs at the moment, they could exist, so please back up all important files before running it, and do so at your own risk. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
The GNU Parted program allows you to create, destroy, resize, move, and copy hard disk partitions. Parted can be used for creating space for new operating systems, reorganizing disk usage, and copying data to new hard disks. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
parted-bf
The GNU Parted disk partition resizing program, small version GNU Parted is a program that allows you to create, destroy, resize, move and copy hard disk partitions. This is useful for creating space for new operating systems, reorganising disk usage, and copying data to new hard disks. This package is similar to the "big" parted package, but has less cosmetic features resulting in smaller binary. Intended to be used on boot floppies. Parted currently supports DOS, Mac, Sun, BSD, GPT and PC98 disklabels/partition tables, as well as a 'loop' (raw disk) type which allows use on RAID/LVM. Filesystems supported are ext2, ext3, fat (FAT16 and FAT32) and linux-swap. Parted can also detect HFS (Mac OS), JFS, NTFS, ReiserFS, UFS and XFS filesystems, but cannot create/remove/resize/check these filesystems yet. The nature of this software means that any bugs could cause massive data loss. While there are no known bugs at the moment, they could exist, so please back up all important files before running it, and do so at your own risk. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
partimage
Linux/UNIX utility to save partitions in a compressed image file Partition Image is a Linux/UNIX partition imaging utility: it saves partitions in the Ext2FS (the linux standard), ReiserFS (a new journaled and powerful file system), NTFS (Windows NT File System) or FAT16/32 (DOS & Windows file systems) file system formats to an image file. Only used blocks are copied. The image file can be compressed in the GZIP/BZIP2 formats to save disk space, and split into multiple files to be copied onto removable media (ZIP for example), burned on a CD-R, etc. This makes it possible to save a full Linux/Windows system with a single operation. In case of a problem (virus, crash, error, etc.), you just have to restore, and after several minutes, your entire system is restored (boot, files, etc.), and fully working. This is very useful when installing the same software on many machines: just install one of them, create an image, and just restore the image on all other machines. Then, after the first one, each installation is automatic made, and requires only a few minutes. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
partimage-server
Server to use partimage across a network Partition Image is a Linux/UNIX partition imaging utility. It backs up your partitions from a client to a server. All data will be transfer encripted using SSL. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
A contiguous section of blocks on your hard disk that is treated like a completely separate disk by most operating systems. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
pas2html
Highlight Pascal and Modula-2 sources for WWW presentation pas2html can highlight your source for presentation in the WWW. It can also be used as a CGI script and can detect whether the client browser supports compressed data to save bandwidth. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
passivetex
PassiveTeX is a library of TeX macros which can be used to process an XML document which results from an XSL transformation to formatting objects. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
Some systems allow the user to entire an entire sentance (or phrase) rather than a short password. A long phrase can be significantly harder to guess than a simple password, providing better security. Since phrases can be difficult to type in, they are usually only used when extreme security is demanded. From Hacking-Lexicon
Change and administer password and group data. This package includes passwd, chsh, chfn, and many other programs to maintain password and group data. Shadow passwords are supported. See /usr/share/doc/passwd/README.Debian.gz From Debian 3.0r0 APT
The passwd package contains a system utility (passwd) which sets and/or changes passwords, using PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules). To use passwd, you should have PAM installed on your system. From Mandrake 9.0 RPM
The passwd package contains a system utility (passwd) which setsand/or changes passwords, using PAM (Pluggable AuthenticationModules).To use passwd, you should have PAM installed on your system. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
The password file From whatis
change user password From whatis
A personal identifier used to validate a user's authorization to log into a Linux system. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
A type of authentication, a pasword is a secret word that a user must know in order to gain access. A passphrse is a correspondingly larger secret consisting of multiple words. History: Passwords have been used since Roman times. The Romans were some of the first large armies where people didn't recognize each other by site. In order to gain entry into the camp, a Roman soldier would have to know the secret password. Key point: The most important defensive mechanism that a corporation can take is to create and enforce policies about proper password usage. This policy should entail: length E.g. minimum of 6 characters composition E.g. upper and lower case, numbers, and punctuation. Note that one of the big support headaches is users who have the caps-lock key on which causes passwords to be mistyped. lifetime E.g. when passwords expire. A good choice would be every 6-months. Password expiration is an overated security technique. It's biggest benefit is that it will automatically age out. source Whether users select their own password or are given one by management. There are automated password programs that will generate easy-to-remember passwords. ownership A policy should declare that passwords should never be shared; many declare that a user will automatically lose privileges if they ever share their password with somebody else. distribution How does the user get his/her password? If the system administrator chooses the password, how do they securely tell the user? If the user chooses a password the first time they log on, how do you prevent other people from getting to the account before the legitimate user? Often people will distribute an initial password, but then force the user to change it. storage Most passwords these days are stored in an encrypted format such that even the administrators cannot know what the password is. authentication period When should the terminal automatically log the user out? Should their be a fixed time, or an inactivity timer? E.g. banking terminals automatically log the user out within a few minutes, PCs have password screen savers that can be configured. Key point: A leading cause of compromise are programs that leave behind default passwords. A leading cause of compromise are users who choose weak passwords that can easily be guessed or cracked. Tools: The crack programs can be used to maintain a strong policy (or break into systems). Tools: On Windows NT, the "passflt.dll" and "passprop.exe" tools can be used to enforce strong passwords. Misunderstanding: People used to believe that a good password was a random mix of UPPER and lower case, numbers, and punctuation. However, this generates passwords that are impossible for users to remember, so they find ways around the restriction, such as writing passwords down on Post-It notes. Therefore, somebody can compromise the network by simply looking for Post-It notes (such as pasted to the bottom of a keyboard). Controversy: Many policies declare that a password must be changed frequently, and most OSes come with tools for enforcing this. However, this leads to the same problem as above: it causes pain for users, so they behave in ways that reduce security. Also, it isn't clear that it dramatically increases security. Contrast: Passwords aren't the only authentication scheme possible. Crypto-cards are often used to generate "one-time passwords" or challenge-response authentication. Tip: Use a Palm Pilot and a crypt program to store your many passwords. Make sure that you choose a encryption program that cannot be broken. Notes: In June, 2001, the British CentralNic commissioned a poll to discover what kinds of passwords people choose. They found that people could be classified: family (50%) Chooses names, such as their own, their partner's (wife, husband, other), children, or pets. They further noted that such people tended to be those who used the computer the least. fan (30%) Chooses names of sports stars, cartoon characters, or pop sars. Since the study was in the United Kingdom, Britsh soccer player David Beckham emerged as the most popular. Variations of Homer Simpson and Madonna also were popular. self-obsessed (11%) Words like "sexy", "stud", "slapper", or "goddess". Note that in the 1995 movie Hackers, the plot centers around a high-level executive who chose "god" for a password, which the hacker easily guessed. cryptics (9%) Passwords with a mix of lower and upper case characters, numbers, and punctuation. See also: grind, crack, password cache, 8-character password, PIN From Hacking-Lexicon
password ageing
In a computer network, a feature of the network operating system (NOS) that keeps track of the last time you changed your password You should change your password frequently to help thwart computer crackers. When your password reaches the end of its "life" such as after six months, a message appears on-screen that encourages you to change your password. From QUECID
password cache
A temporary copy of the password. Internal to the computer, password information is constantly being checked. If you were queried for the password each and every time, you would find that computer would become unusable. Therefore, the computer attempts to "cache" the password so that internal prompts during the same session do not cause external prompts to the user. Key point: All systems cache passwords in memory during a login session. Therefore, if a hacker can gain access to all memory on the system, he/she can likely sift the memory for passwords. Likewise, hackers can frequently sift pagefiles for passwords. Key point: Many programs whose goal is ease-of-use will ask the user if they want to save the password on disk (in a file or registry. For example, the MS Outlook e-mail client has this feature to cache the POP3 passwords. Therefore, hackers have programs that will sift the filesystem or registry or these passwords. Some systems will store these cached passwords in clear-text, others attempt to encrypt the passwords, but usually this encryption mechanism ca be defeated. From Hacking-Lexicon
password file
A file, /etc/passwd, that contains basic information about each user authorized to log into a given Linux system. For each user, the file contains a line that gives the user's login name, encrypted password, user identifier, group identifier (if any), home directory, and login program patch apply a diff file to an original. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
A method of limiting access to a program, computer, or a network by requiring you to enter a password Some programs allow you to password-protect your files so they can't be read by others, but be sure to keep a record of the password. Many users have lost work permanently because they forgot the password and had no means to retrieve it. (If a method for retrieving a password were included in software programs, a clever cracker would quickly discover it, and your data wouldn't be secure) From QUECID
merge lines of files From whatis
1. n. A temporary addition to a piece of code, usually as a quick-and-dirty remedy to an existing bug or misfeature. A patch may or may not work, and may or may not eventually be incorporated permanently into the program. Distinguished from a diff or mod by the fact that a patch is generated by more primitive means than the rest of the program; the classical examples are instructions modified by using the front panel switches, and changes made directly to the binary executable of a program originally written in an HLL. Compare one-line fix. 2. vt. To insert a patch into a piece of code. 3. [in the Unix world] n. A diff (sense 2). 4. A set of modifications to binaries to be applied by a patching program. IBM operating systems often receive updates to the operating system in the form of absolute hexadecimal patches. If you have modified your OS, you have to disassemble these back to the source. The patches might later be corrected by other patches on top of them (patches were said to "grow scar tissue"). The result was often a convoluted patch space and headaches galore. 5. [Unix] the patch(1) program, written by Larry Wall, which automatically applies a patch (sense 3) to a set of source code. There is a classic story of a tiger team penetrating a secure military computer that illustrates the danger inherent in binary patches (or, indeed, any patches that you can't -- or don't -- inspect and examine before installing). They couldn't find any trap doors or any way to penetrate security of IBM's OS, so they made a site visit to an IBM office (remember, these were official military types who were purportedly on official business), swiped some IBM stationery, and created a fake patch. The patch was actually the trapdoor they needed. The patch was distributed at about the right time for an IBM patch, had official stationery and all accompanying documentation, and was dutifully installed. The installation manager very shortly thereafter learned something about proper procedures. From Jargon Dictionary
Apply a diff file to an original Patch will take a patch file containing any of the four forms of difference listing produced by the diff program and apply those differences to an original file, producing a patched version. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
The patch program applies diff files to originals. The diff command is used to compare an original to a changed file. Diff lists the changes made to the file. A person who has the original file can thenuse the patch command with the diff file to add the changes to their original file (patching the file). Patch should be installed because it is a common way of upgrading applications. From Mandrake 9.0 RPM
apply a diff file to an original From whatis
patch (fix, update)
Security updates to products are often referred to as "patches" because they fix one small part of the product rather than updating the entire product. Analogy: Imagine that you are in a rubber raft that seems to be sinking. You look around on the boat and see small holes. You use your patch kit to fix the small holes rather than building yourself a new boat. Key point: The software you are using today likely has security holes that nobody has discovered yet. It seems unlikely, but this has been the historical precidence, whether you are using open-source (e.g. Linux), Microsoft products, or class UNIX systems (e.g. Sun). Therefore, if you don't keep up with the latest software, you will eventually get hacked. From Hacking-Lexicon
patchutils
This is a collection of programs that can manipulate patch files ina variety of ways, such as interpolating between two pre-patches, combining two incremental patches, fixing line numbers in hand-edited patches, and simply listing the files modified by a patch. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
Utilities to work with patches This package includes the following utilities: - combinediff creates a cumulative patch from two incremental patches - filterdiff extracts or excludes diffs from a diff file - fixcvsdiff fixes diff files created by CVS that "patch" mis-interprets - grepdiff shows which files are modified by a patch matching a regex - interdiff shows differences between two unified diff files - lsdiff shows which files are modified by a patch - rediff fixes offsets and counts of a hand-edited diff - splitdiff separates out incremental patches From Debian 3.0r0 APT
patgen
generate patterns for TeX hyphenation From whatis
n. 1. A bang path or explicitly routed Internet address; a node-by-node specification of a link between two machines. Though these are now obsolete as a form of addressing, they still show up in diagnostics and trace headers occasionally (e.g. in NNTP headers). 2. [Unix] A filename, fully specified relative to the root directory (as opposed to relative to the current directory; the latter is sometimes called a `relative path'). This is also called a `pathname'. 3. [Unix and MS-DOS] The `search path', an environment variable specifying the directories in which the shell (COMMAND.COM, under MS-DOS) should look for commands. Other, similar constructs abound under Unix (for example, the C preprocessor has a `search path' it uses in looking for #include files). From Jargon Dictionary
path name
In DOS, a statement that indicates the name of a file and precisely where it's located on a hard disk . When opening or saving a file with most applications, you must specify the full path name to retrieve or store the file in a directory other than the current directory. Suppose that you're using Wordperfect, and you want to store the file REPORT9.DOC in the directory C:\DOCS. If C:\DOCS isn't the current directory, you must type C:\DOCS\REPORT9.DOC to name arid store the file in the correct location. From QUECID
pathchk
check whether file names are valid or portable From whatis
pavuk
Multiprotocol file graber with textual and graphic control. This is a file graber, which can work in text or graphic mode. Pavuk is extremly configurable, supports FTP, HTTP, HTTPS and Gopher protocols. Pavuk also supports cookies, HTTP authentification, "robots.txt". You can also use FTP and HTTP proxy caches. Graphical interface is written in Xt or GTK. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
'pax' is the POSIX standard archive tool. It supports the two most common forms of standard Unix archive (backup) files - CPIO and TAR. From Mandrake 9.0 RPM
Portable Archive Interchange Pax is an archiving utility that reads and writes tar and cpio formats, both the traditional ones and the extended formats specified in IEEE 1003.1. It handles multi-volume archives and automatically determines the format of an archive while reading it. Three user interfaces are supported: tar, cpio, and pax. The pax interface was designed by IEEE 1003.2 as a compromise in the chronic controversy over which of tar or cpio is best. This is the free OpenBSD's version written by Keith Muller. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
personal package builder for Debian packages pbuilder constructs a chroot system, and builds a package inside the chroot. It is an ideal system to use to check that a package's build-dependencies are correct, and to be sure that unnecessary and wrong build dependencies will not exist in the resulting package. It uses apt extensively, and a local mirror, or a fast connection to a Debian mirror is ideal, but not necessary. "pbuilder create" uses debootstrap to create a chroot image. "pbuilder update" updates the image to the current state of testing/unstable/whatever "pbuilder build" takes a *.dsc file and builds a binary in the chroot image. pdebuild is a wrapper for Debian Developers, to allow running pbuilder just like "debuild", as a normal user. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pc532down
Downloader for pc532 monitor ROM. This is 'pc532down', a utility to support downloading to the monitor ROM on a pc532 system. If you don't already know what a pc532 is, you don't want to know, and you don't want this utility. This utility is also provided as part of the pc532 distribution of NetBSD under the name 'download.c'. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pcal
Makes printable Postscript calendars without X. "Pcal" is a program to print PostScript calendars for any month and year. By default, it looks for a file in the home directory named "calendar" for entries with leading dates matching dates on the calendar, and prints any following text under the appropriate day. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Printed Circuit Board Design Program Pcb is a handy tool for the X Window System build to design printed circuit boards. All coordinate units are 1/1000 inch. For details see the manual. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pccts
The Purdue Compiler Construction Tool Set (PCCTS). PCCTS consists of ANother Tool for Language Recognition (ANTLR), a DFA-based Lexical analyzer Generator (DLG) and assorted other utilities designed for the construction of compilers and other language translators. ANTLR is a parser generator which generates recursive descent parsers which are easier to debug than the table driven bottom-up parsers created by YACC. It also provides support for the automatic generation of Abstract Syntax Trees (AST's). From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pcd2html
Scripts to convert PCD images to commented HTML pages By giving some rules and commenting text in predefined files it is possible to convert Kodak Photo CD data into linked HTML pages with describing text. English and German pages can be created. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Characterize the bandwidth, latency and loss on network links pchar is a reimplementation of the pathchar utility, written by Van Jacobson. Both programs attempt to characterize the bandwidth, latency, and loss of links along an end-to-end path through the Internet. pchar works in both IPv4 and IPv6 networks. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pcitweak
read/write PCI config space From whatis
pciutils
Linux PCI Utilities (for 2.[1234].x kernels) This package contains various utilities for inspecting and setting of devices connected to the PCI bus. Requires kernel version 2.1.82 or newer (supporting the /proc/bus/pci interface). From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pclock
Clock Dock app for Window Maker window manager This is a nice analog clock. It allows different XPMs as backgrounds as well as different configurations of hands and such to match with the XPM. Make sure to check the examples for some included XPM's besides the default From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pcmcia-cs
PCMCIA Card Services for Linux. PCMCIA cards are commonly used in laptops to provide expanded capabilities, such as modems, increased memory, etc. Some desktop PCs can accept PCMCIA cards as well, although this is rare. Card Services for Linux is a complete PCMCIA support package. It includes a set of client drivers for specific cards, and a card manager daemon that can respond to card insertion and removal events, loading and unloading drivers on demand. It supports ``hot swapping'' of PCMCIA cards, so cards can be inserted and ejected at any time. The actual kernel modules required for this package are contained in the pcmcia-modules-<kernel version> package, where <kernel version> is the version of the kernel for which the modules have been compiled. The wireless-tools package is required by wireless network adapters. The hotplug package is required by 2.4 (and later) series kernels to use PCI (Cardbus) devices. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pcmcia-modules-2.2.20
PCMCIA Modules for Linux (kernel 2.2.20). This package contains the set of loadable kernel modules for the PCMCIA Card Services applications program interface. They have been compiled to be compatible with the kernel in the kernel-image-2.2.20 package version 2.2.20-5. If you have compiled your own kernel, you will most likely need to also recompile the PCMCIA modules. The pcmcia-source package has been provided to help Debian users recompile the PCMCIA modules to work with their kernels' configurations. (It also is possible to rebuild these modules using the Debian source files for the pcmcia-cs package.) The utilities in the pcmcia-cs package are required to use these modules. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pcomplete
Programmable completion for Emacs Pcomplete provides a facility for using programmatic completion in Emacs. It is especially useful for utilities like shells and command interpretors, but can in fact be used anywhere within Emacs. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pconf-detect
A small command-line utility to auto-detect printers pconf-detect is a simple command-line utility for detecting parallel, USB and network-connected printers. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pcrd
PCR-1000 Control Daemon / Command Line Interface PCRD is a command line program, that also supports a daemon mode, for controlling an Icom PCR-1000 Wide Band Receiver via a serial port. For more info on the PCR-1000, see http://www.icomamerica.com/receivers/pc/ From Debian 3.0r0 APT
PCRE has its own native API, but a set of "wrapper" functions that are based onthe POSIX API are also supplied in the library libpcreposix. Note that this just provides a POSIX calling interface to PCRE: the regular expressions themselves still follow Perl syntax and semantics. This package contains a grep variant based on the PCRE library. From Mandrake 9.0 RPM
Perl-compatible regular expression library. PCRE has its own native API, but a set of "wrapper" functions that are based on the POSIX API are also supplied in the library libpcreposix. Note that this just provides a POSIX calling interface to PCRE; the regular expressions themselves still follow Perl syntax and semantics. The header file for the POSIX-style functions is called pcreposix.h. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
pcsc-tools
Some tools to be used with smart cards and PC/SC This archive contains some tools useful for a user of PC/SC user. The tools provided are: pcsc_scan(1) scans available smart card readers and print detected events: card insertion with ATR, card removal; scriptor(1) Perl script to send commands to a smart card using a batch file or stdin; gscriptor(1) the same idea as scriptor.pl(1) but with Perl-Gtk GUI. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pcscd
PCSC Lite resource manager daemon The purpose of PCSC Lite is to provide a Windows(R) SCard interface in a very small form factor for communicating to smartcards and readers. The PCSC daemon is used to dynamically allocate/deallocate reader drivers at runtime and manage connections to the readers. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Realtime Computer Music and Graphics System. A real-time graphical programming environment for audio and graphics analysis and rendering. Pd's audio functions are built-in; graphical computations require a separate package named GEM ("Graphics Environment for Multimedia"). Pd and GEM are available for SGI machines, IBM PC compatibles (running NT or W95) and Linux (PCs or Alpha machines). From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pdf2dsc
generate a PostScript page list of a PDF document From whatis
pdf2ps
Ghostscript PDF to PostScript translator From whatis
pdfeinitex
PDF output from e-TeX From whatis
pdfelatex
pdfetex
pdfevirtex
pdffonts
Portable Document Format (PDF) font analyzer (version 1.00) From whatis
pdfimages
Portable Document Format (PDF) image extractor (version 1.00) From whatis
pdfinfo
Portable Document Format (PDF) document information extractor (version 1.00) From whatis
pdfinitex
PDF output from TeX From whatis
pdfjadetex
PDF output from JadeTeX From whatis
pdflatex
pdfopt
Ghostscript PDF Optimizer From whatis
pdfscreen
Make PDF documents which are printable and readable on screen too pdfscreen is an extension of the hyperref package to provide a screen-based document design. This package helps to generate pdf documents that are readable on screen and will fit the screen's aspect ratio. Also it can be used with various options to produce regular print versions of the same document without any extra effort. One important utility of this package is to generate slides for talks, seminars etc. It produces a pdf file which can be used for a slideshow on any machine which has a pdf viewer. (Preferrably acroread). The homepage of this project is http://www.river-valley.com/download From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pdftex
pdftops
Portable Document Format (PDF) to PostScript converter (version 1.00) From whatis
pdftotext
Portable Document Format (PDF) to text converter (version 1.00) From whatis
pdfvirtex
pdksh
A public domain version of the Korn shell PD-ksh is a mostly complete AT&T ksh look-alike (see NOTES file for a list of things not supported). Work is currently underway to make it fully compatible with both POSIX and AT&T ksh (when the two don't conflict). Since pdksh is free and compiles and runs on most common unix systems, it is very useful in creating a consistent user interface across multiple machines. For example, in the CS department of MUN, pdksh is installed on a variety of machines including Suns, HPs, DecStations, PCs running Linux, etc., and is the login shell of ~4500 users. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
The perl data language. Perl extensions for numerics. PDL (``Perl Data Language'') gives standard perl the ability to COMPACTLY store and SPEEDILY manipulate the large N-dimensional data arrays which are the bread and butter of scientific computing. The idea is to turn perl in to a free, array-oriented, numerical language in the same sense as commercial packages like IDL and MatLab. One can write simple perl expressions to manipulate entire numerical arrays all at once. For example, using PDL the perl variable $a can hold a 1024x1024 floating point image, it only takes 4Mb of memory to store it and expressions like $a=sqrt($a)+2 would manipulate the whole image in a few seconds. A simple interactive shell (perldl) is provided for command line use together with a module (PDL) for use in perl scripts. Web page: http://pdl.perl.org/ From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Small GTK-based login program Pdm is a miniature login program, intended for use on PDAs and other small systems. It is not a proper replacement for xdm, but has just about enough functionality to authenticate a user and start a session. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pdmenu
Simple full screen menu program. A simple full screen menu program, intended to be comfortable login shell for inexperienced users. Pdmenu interfaces with Debian's menu system, to provide automatically-generated lists of installed programs. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pdnsd
Proxy DNS Server pdnsd is a proxy dns server with permanent caching (the cache contents are written to hard disk on exit) that is designed to cope with unreachable or down dns servers (for example in dial-in networking). pdnsd can be used with applications that do dns lookups, eg on startup, and can't be configured to change that behaviour, to prevent the often minute-long hangs (or even crashes) that result from stalled dns queries. Some Netscape Navigator versions for Unix, for example, expose this behaviour. And it's IPv6 capable. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Simple printing system for workstations Queueless printing system for workstation installations, which also supports sending print jobs to BSD lpr queues, over Appletalk (using netatalk) or TCP connections, and over fax transmissions via the efax utilities. It also includes a contributed interface for printing to Novell NetWare-based servers. The maintainer of the Linux Printing HOWTO recommends using this system standalone, or as a front-end to LPRng. Printing to non-Postscript printers usually requires using GNU or Aladdin Ghostscript. Home Page: http://pdq.sourceforge.net/ From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pdumpfs
a daily backup system similar to Plan9's dumpfs pdumpfs is a simple daily backup system similar to Plan9's dumpfs which preserves every daily snapshot. pdumpfs is written in Ruby. You can access the past snapshots at any time for retrieving a certain day's file. Let's backup your home directory with pdumpfs! From Debian 3.0r0 APT
A HTML Editor for GTK+/GNOME It supports most of basic HTML. It features Session Management and HTML Preview using the GtkHTML widget, Drag N' Drop among other things. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
peer-to-peer file transfer
A file-sharing technique for local area networks (LANs) in which each user has access to the public files located on the workstation of any other network user. Each user determines which files, if any, he or she wants to make public for network access. See TOPS. From QUECID
peer-to-peer network
A local area network (LAN) without a central server and in which all computers in the network have access to the public idles located on all other workstation. See client/server network and peer-to-peer file transfer. From QUECID
pencam
Download images from STV0680B-001 chip based digital cameras pencam is a command line program which can download images from digital cameras which use the STV0680B-001 chip (e.g. the Aiptek Pencam or the Nisis Quickpix 2). From Debian 3.0r0 APT
penetration testing (pen testing)
A penetration test is where a client hires ethical hackers to attempt to break into their systems. The value of pentration testing is that attack and defense are different mindsets. People who must defend against systems are frequently not very good at finding ways into systems, and vice versa. Controversy: There are several well-documented cases where clients have been burned by such tests. The penetration testers may find juicy corporate data that they cannot resist taking. Controversy: Many people debate the effecacy of such tests. Evil hackers will choose a set of techniques that protect them from being caught. Penetration testers do not fear prosecution, and will therefore choose a different set of techniques. See also: tiger team From Hacking-Lexicon
penguin-command
a missile command clone This is a clone of the classic "Missile Command" Game, but it has better graphics and music. You have to defend cities by shooting at missiles, flyers and smartbombs. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
penguineyes
A gtk version of xeyes penguineyes displays Tux, Evil Tux, Penguin of Lurve, Robopenguin, Gnu, Dust Puppy or Linus following your mouse cursor with their eyes. Upstream webpage: no longer available (was http://www.crathva.fsnet.co.uk/penguineyes.html) From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Five in a row game for X and the console Pente is the English name for the Asian game ni-nuki, which itself is a version of the game go-moku. The game is a variant of the well known five in a row. Placing five stones in a row is one way to win, the other is to capture five pairs of the opponents stones. Pente can run in three different modes: X, curses or text. You can play against the computer or another human, and there is also support for playing over a network. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pentium-builder
force pentium optimized compilation Replaces gcc, cc, and g++ with scripts that build pentium optimized code. (Other processors can be optimized for as well.) By default, after installing this package, the compilers will behave normally. However, if the environment variable DEBIAN_BUILDARCH=pentium is set, they will enter pentium optimized compile mode. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
POP3 and IMAP4 Proxy server Perdition allows users to connect to a content-free POP3 or IMAP4 server that will redirect them to their real POP3 or IMAP4 server. This enables mail retrieval for a domain to be split across multiple backend servers on a per user basis. This can also be used to as a POP3 or IMAP4 proxy especially in firewall applications. Perdition supports arbitrary library based map access to determine the server for a user. POSIX Regular Expression, GDBM, MySQL, PostgreSQL and LDAP libraries ship with the distribution. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
perdition-ldap
Library to allow perdition to access LDAP based pop maps. Perdition allows for arbitrary user database access through shared libraries much in the manner of NSS in glibc. This package allows a user database to be sourced from LDAP. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
perdition-mysql
Library to allow perdition to access MySQL based pop maps. Perdition allows for arbitrary user database access through shared libraries much in the manner of NSS in glibc. This package allows a user database stored in a MySQL database. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
perdition-postgresql
Library to allow perdition to access PostgreSQL based pop maps. Perdition allows for arbitrary user database access through shared libraries much in the manner of NSS in glibc. This package allows a user database stored in a PostgreSQL database. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
perforate
Utilities to save disk space GNU cp used to detect files that contain 0-filled holes and save disk space by skipping them with lseek when writing a file and thus not allocating disk blocks. Unfortunately it does no longer. So here is program to make holes in existing files. Also there are some scripts that help cleaning up the hard disk (finding duplicated and/or unstripped files). From Debian 3.0r0 APT
perimeter network
A network added between a protected network and an external network,in order to provide an additional layer of security. A perimeter network is sometimes called a DMZ. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
Larry Wall's Practical Extraction and Report Language. An interpreted scripting language, known among some as "Unix's Swiss Army Chainsaw". Perl is optimised for scanning arbitrary text files and system administration. It has built-in extended regular expression matching and replacement, a data-flow mechanism to improve security with setuid scripts and is extensible via modules that can interface to C libraries. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Perl is a high-level programming language with roots in C, sed, awk and shell scripting. Perl is good at handling processes and files, and is especially good at handling text. Perl's hallmarks are practicality and efficiency. While it is used to do a lot of different things, Perl's most common applications (and what it excels at) are probably system administration utilities and web programming. A large proportion of the CGI scripts on the web are written in Perl. You need the perl package installed on your system so that your system can handle Perl scripts. You need perl-base to have a full perl. From Mandrake 9.0 RPM
Practical Extraction and Report Language From whatis
perl2html
Highlight perl sources for WWW presentation perl2html can highlight your source for presentation in the WWW. It can also be used as a CGI script and can detect whether the client browser supports compressed data to save bandwidth. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
perlbug
how to submit bug reports on Perl From whatis
perlcc
generate executables from Perl programs From whatis
A perl interface to the libMagick graphics routines. PerlMagick is a perl module which gives you all the functionality you can enjoy in the imagemagick package binaries, from perl. One can load several images with perlmagick, apply numerous transformations and operations on the images and write them back, possibly in a different format. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
perlmenu
Menu and Template (curses-based) UI for Perl perlmenu is a Perl module that provides your application with access to easy-to-use functions for templates, menus, forms, and the like -- everything needed to put a slick UI on a program without resorting to a GUI. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
perlsgml
tools to build and analyze SGML or XML document type definitions. dtd2html generates a suite of linked HTML documents listing the components and features of each element in an SGML Document Type Definition (DTD). dtddiff shows differences between two DTDs. dtdtree shows the hierarchy tree (in ASCII) of SGML elements in a DTD. dtdview is an interactive program for studying an SGML DTD. stripsgml strips SGML markup from a file, and also attempts to translate entity references to standard ASCII characters. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
perltidy
A Perl script indenter and reformatter Perltidy is a Perl script which indents and reformats Perl scripts to make them easier to read. The formatting can be controlled with command line parameters. The default parameter settings approximately follow the suggestions in the Perl Style Guide. If you write Perl scripts, or spend much time reading them, you will probably find it useful. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
perspic
A text indexing and word search program Perspic is a tool for the study of documents that change infrequently if at all, e.g. sacred texts, ancient texts of historical interest, etc. Perspic build a fully indexed and compressed version of the original text files. Word search results are summarized by line. Selecting a given line opens the full text about the given word. Other features include dictionary definition of words, scanning of word derivatives, and saving selected quotations with their accompanying attribution. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
peruser
Suite for offline reading and composing of Usenet articles News Peruser is a suite of several small programs to enable a user to do offline reading and composition of Usenet news articles. Peruser can compose replies-by-mail, as well, and pass them off to a local sendmail. The toplevel applet's filename is "npcollections", but you are able to launch News Peruser by typing both "npcollections" or "peruser" at the shell prompt, or by selecting it from your window manager's menu. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
petsc
PETSc is the "Portable Extensible Toolkit for Scientific Computation", a suite of data structures and routines for the scalable (parallel) solution of scientific applications modeled by partial differential equations. It employs the MPI standard for all message-passing communication. Several sample scientific applications, as well as various papers and talks, demonstrate the features of the PETSc libraries. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pexts
Pexts is a collection of Pike extension modules designed to fill the gaps that are in the standard Pike distribution. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pf2afm
Make an AFM file from Postscript (PFB/PFA/PFM) font files using ghostscript From whatis
pfaedit
Font Editor for PS, TrueType and OpenType fonts PfaEdit allows you to edit outline and bitmap fonts. You can create new ones or modify old ones. It is also a font format converter and can convert among PostScript (ASCII & binary Type 1, some Type 3s, some Type 0s), TrueType, and OpenType (Type2). From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pfb2pfa
convert a type1 pfb file (binary MSDOS) into a pfa (ASCII) From whatis
pfe
Portable Forth Environment, ANS standard, all wordsets. PFE (Portable Forth Environment) is a programming environment for the programming language Forth. PFE is based on the ANSI Standard for Forth. It has been created by Dirk-Uwe Zoller and is now maintained by Guido Draheim at Tektronix. Tektronix has made a number of extensions: PFE is now fully multithreaded and you can load additional C objects at runtime to extend the Forth dictionary. It is best targeted for embedded environments since you can easily exchange the terminal driver and the initilization routines. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pflogsumm
Postfix log entry summarizer pflogsumm is designed to provide an over-view of postfix activity, with just enough detail to give the administrator a "heads up" for potential trouble spots. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pforth
portable Forth interpreter pForth is a public domain, portable ANS Forth based on a kernel written in ANSI 'C'. This makes it easy to port pForth to multiple platforms. More information on pForth is available at http://www.softsynth.com/pforth/ From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pftp
Fast file transfer program (no authentication!) This program transfers files from host to host on command line (within your telnet sessions). You may copy directories recursively, send/receive stdin/stdout, use your own filters, accept specified clients ... It is the fastest file transfer program on the net! ;^) From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Internet file transfer program From whatis
pgaccess
Tk/Tcl front-end for PostgreSQL database A Tk/Tcl program for X that provides a front-end to PostgreSQL. It can be used to generate and store queries, views and new forms. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pgapack
A general-purpose genetic algorithm package PGAPack is a general-purpose, data-structure-neutral, parallel genetic algorithm package being developed at Argonne National Laboratory. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pgdocs-pdf
PostgreSQL documentation in PDF format on US letter paper PostgreSQL documentation in PDF format formatted for US letter paper size From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pgdocs-pdf-a4
PostgreSQL documentation in PDF format for A4 paper PostgreSQL documentation in PDF format, arranged for A4 size paper. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Progeny graphical installer creation system This package contains PGI, a multi-architecture graphical installer creation system for Debian GNU/Linux originally developed by Progeny Linux Systems, Inc., for their Debian-based "Progeny Debian" operating system. This package enables the user to create ISO images containing a bootable installer (PGI) which guides the user through the steps of installation. The installer supports text and graphical installation modes. PGI runs debootstrap to install a minimal Debian system to the target filesystem(s), sets up a boot loader (if the installing user requests), and uses the pivot_root() system call to "boot" into the installed system. ISO images may be generated with complete or partial Debian package archives, or with the the installer only (useful for network-only installs, which PGI supports.) PGI is extensible and customizable. Two example extensions are provided with this package; one uses the base-config package, while the other configures the installed system using the X-based Configlet system. Two manuals are provided as part of this package. "Creating Debian Installers with PGI" documents the setup and configuration of a PGI-based installer ISO in detail. "Using the PGI Debian Installer" is an example of a PGI user's manual. Those creating custom installers with PGI will want to update the user's manual for their target audience. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pgmonitor
Tcl/TK script for examining the status of PostgreSQL backends This is a Tk/Tcl script for listing PostgreSQL backends and showing their current status. If run by root or the PostgreSQL admin user, it is able to show what query a backend is running. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pgn-extract
a Portable Game Notation (PGN) extractor Pgn-extract is a program to extract selected games from a collection of chess games in PGN format. There are several ways to specify the criteria on which to extract: textual move sequences, the position reached after a sequence of moves, information in the tag fields, and material balance in the ending. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pgp (pretty-good-privacy)
Popular encryption program. It was created by a fellow named Phil Zimmerman as a subversive act. Phil later exploited it as a social-engineering attack against the business community. Key point: All true hackers use open-source versions of PGP to encrypt their data. Resources: RFC 1991: PGP Message Exchange Formats RFC 2015: MIME Security with Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) RFC 2440: OpenPGP Message Format Point: Users of PGP have choices of the following algorithms. Note that older v2.6 users can only use RSA/MD5/IDEA to read messages. encryption 3DES (aka. Triple-DES) The best choice for conservative people. The NSA claims that further proliferation of triple-DES is counter to national security interests, presumably because they cannot break it. It is the most analyzed cipher (and therefore believed to be the most secure) and is extensively used in the finance industry to protect transactions. IDEA A bad choice from the standpoint that it is protected by patents and many people are unable to use it. CAST5 AES The new United States standard, a good second choice, especially if speed is a concern. Twofish Blowfish public key RSA DSS (aka. DSA) DH/ELG-E Diffie-Hellman used for encryption, but not signing. ELG ElGamal signing, not recommended as it is considered weak. hash SHA1 The best choice for security paranoid people. MD5 The worst choice for paranoids, however, it is often the most popular. RIPEMD160 From Hacking-Lexicon
pgp4pine
A PGP/GPG Wrapper for Pine pgp4pine supports encryption/signing and decryption/verifying of PGP2, PGP5 and GnuPG email. Currently does not support MIME attachments. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pgpgpg
Wrapper for using GnuPG in programs designed for PGP Pgpgpg is a wrapper around Gnu Privacy Guard which takes PGP 2.6 command line options, translate them and then call GnuPG (Gnu Privacy Guard) to perform the desired action. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pgrep
grep utility that uses perl compatible regexes. Perl-style regexps have many useful features that the standard POSIX ones don't; this is basically the same as grep but with the different regexp syntax. The other reason for the existence of pgrep is that its source code is an example of programming with libpcre. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
look up or signal processes based on name and other attributes From whatis
Chess playing program. Phalanx is a simple chess playing program of conventional design. It is xboard compatible. The main aim is to write a slow thinker with a lot of chess specific knowledge. Current version plays risky, active chess and shows quite good tactical performance. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
A GNOME front-end to CVS Pharmacy intends to be a GNOME compliant front-end to CVS. Currently, it provides a limited user interface to CVS commands and a "console" for the lazy power-user. It allows you to work with several CVS servers and to have a local working directory for each. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
phaseshift
PSK31 terminal for X11 phaseshift is a PSK31 terminal for X11. PSK31 is a new modulation scheme popular with radio amateurs on HF radio. This program implements the PSK31 modem and a terminal to use it. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
phluid
Imlib2 based Window Manager for X This is a lightweight window manager for X, based on Enlightenment's Imlib2 library. At the moment it is still in heavy development, but has basic theming support and development is happening rapidly. With Imlib2's support for alpha transparency and blending, this will rapidly turn into a superbly attractive window manager. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
photopc
Interface to digital still cameras This is a library and a command-line frontend to manipulate digital still cameras based on Fujitsu chipset and Siarra Imaging firmware. The program is known to work with Agfa, Epson and Olympus cameras. Should also work with Sanyo, but this is untested. The cameras typically come with software for Windows and for Mac, and no description of the protocol. With this tool, they are manageable from a UNIX box. Bruce D. Lightner <[email protected]> has added support for Win32 and DOS platforms. Note that the program does not have any GUI, it is plain command-line even on Windows. For a GUI, check out the phototk program. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
phototk
GUI interface for digital cameras This is a GUI front-end to the photopc program that is used for downloading images and manipulating certain serial-controlled digital cameras. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
php-elisp
Emacs support for php files. Emacs major mode for php supporting syntax highlighting, indentation and good integration with html-statements. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
PHP extension for GTK+ client-side cross-platform GUI apps. PHP-GTK: PHP language bindings for GTK+ toolkit PHP-GTK is a PHP extension that enables you to write client-side cross-platform GUI applications. This is the first such extension of this kind and one of the goals behind it was to prove that PHP is a capable general-purpose scripting language that is suited for more than just Web applications. This extension will _not_ allow you to display GTK+ programs in a Web browser, and can be used in the Web environment only if you are running the webserver locally. It is intended for creating standalone GUI applications. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
php-imlib
PHP Imlib2 Extension php_imlib is an extension for PHP4 that provides access to Rasterman's image manipulation library, Imlib2, from within PHP scripts. It currently implements most of the Imlib2 API, except for some X11-specific functions. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
A server-side, HTML-embedded scripting language PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor Version 3.0 is an HTML-embedded scripting language. Much of its syntax is borrowed from C, Java and Perl with a couple of unique PHP-specific features thrown in. The goal of the language is to allow web developers to write dynamically generated pages quickly. This package provides the loadable module for the apache webserver, some modules providing extra functions, and a php/fi 2.0 -> php3 script converter (works most of the time). With additional modules it supports direct communication with postgresql, mysql, msql databases, dbf files, and it has an interface to the libgd graphics library. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
A server-side, HTML-embedded scripting language This package provides the loadable module for the apache webserver. Compiled in modules are: bcmath, calendar, curl, dba, exif, filepro, ftp, mm, sockets, wddx, xml, yp and zlib. PHP4 is an HTML-embedded scripting language. Much of its syntax is borrowed from C, Java and Perl with a couple of unique PHP-specific features thrown in. The goal of the language is to allow web developers to write dynamically generated pages quickly. The most significant change between php3 and php4 is the new parser engine called Zend, which boosts performance quite impressively. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Documentation for PHP4 and PHP3 This package provides the documentation for the PHP4 scripting language. It is mostly complete now, but it undergoes continual improvements. PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor Version 4.0 is an HTML-embedded scripting language. Much of its syntax is borrowed from C, Java and Perl with a couple of unique PHP-specific features thrown in. The goal of the language is to allow web developers to write dynamically generated pages quickly. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
phpgroupware
Web based GroupWare system written in PHP phpGroupWare is a web based GroupWare system. It comes with several core apps for email, calendar, todo list, address book, file manager, and a notepad. It also provides a framework for add-on modules to integrate seamlessly in phpGroupWare. Some samples are a bookmark manager, a trouble ticket system, a weather reporter, a phone log, a chat program, and a forum system. There are many more in development, and you can develop your own as well. You should use it if you would like a powerful groupware system that can be access from anywhere on the Internet, and allows for custom add-ons. For companies with a distributed user base, it's an ideal solution. Oh, and did I mention that its FREE? From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Library for easy writing web applications (stable version) The library will help you to write medium and large sized data-driven web applications. "Medium to larged applications" are applications that consists of multiple database queries, have to generate tables from database data, need a user interface that generates SQL queries or need a comfortable and user-friendly way to protect pages or functionality on pages. "Data-driven" applications are applications that make use of a supported SQL databse to create HTML content and that use HTML forms to drive database transactions. This is the official stable version More information can be found at the phplib web site http://phplib.sourceforge.net/ From Debian 3.0r0 APT
A set of PHP-scripts to administrate MySQL over the WWW. phpMyAdmin is intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the WWW. Currently it can: - create and drop databases - create, copy, drop and alter tables - delete, edit and add fields - execute any SQL-statement, even batch-queries - manage keys on fields - load text files into tables - create and read dumps of tables - export and import CSV data - administer one single database From Debian 3.0r0 APT
A set of PHP-scripts to administrate PostgreSQL over the WWW. phpPgAdmin is intended to handle the administration of PostgreSQL over the WWW. Currently it can: - create and drop databases - create, copy, drop and alter tables/views/sequences/functions - edit and add fields (to the extent Postgres does) - execute any SQL-statement, even batch-queries - manage keys on fields - load text files into tables - create and read dumps of tables - administer one single database - administer postgres users From Debian 3.0r0 APT
phpsysinfo
PHP Based Host Information phpSysInfo is a PHP script that displays information about the host being accessed. It will displays things like Uptime, CPU, Memory, LM Sensors, SCSI, IDE, PCI, Ethernet, Floppy, and Video Information. It has support for multiple languages and themes. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Compute Archimedes' constant Pi to arbitrary precision. This is a teaser for the CLN library, to which the actual computation is delegated. You may use these decimal digits as random digits or search them for hidden messages. :-) From Debian 3.0r0 APT
compile pictures for troff or TeX From whatis
picasm
Assembler for the Microchip PIC-family Microcontrollers An assembler for the the Microchip PIC family of microcontrollers. Supports the majority of the Microchip PIC family. Uses Microchip (not Parallax) syntax. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
picp
command line utility to drive a PICSTART programmer picp is a utility which allows you to use the Microchip PICSTART programmer, where you would normally be required to use the Windows software. The PICSTART is a low-cost hardware PIC programmer for developing custom microcontroller applications. Faster than MPLAB, comprehensive command line interface, full source provided. (under the GPL) From Debian 3.0r0 APT
picturebook
Images and movie capture utility for the Sony picturebook This program captures images and movies on a Sony VAIO picturebook laptop, taking advantage of the built in CCD camera, hardware JPEG encoder, and jog dial. Please note that this package is superseded in functionality by video4linux's Motion Eye Camera Driver. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
picview
An image preview and viewing system for Gnome. Picview is an image viewing program for Gnome. Picview will create an index of all the pictures in a directory. It can have large or small previews. Images can be viewed in a window using Electric Eyes or in full screen mode. It also has drag and drop support. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pidentd
TCP/IP IDENT protocol server. Identd is a server which implements the TCP/IP proposed standard IDENT user identification protocol as specified in the RFC 1413 document. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pidentd-des
TCP/IP IDENT protocol server with DES support. Identd is a server which implements the TCP/IP proposed standard IDENT user identification protocol as specified in the RFC 1413 document. This package has been built with DES support. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pidof
find the process ID of a running program. From whatis
Powerful interpreted programming language Pike is an interpreted, object-oriented, dynamic programming language with a syntax similar to C. It includes many powerful data types and a module system that, for instance, provides image manipulation, database connectivity and advanced cryptography. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Morse code pileup trainer for SB compatible soundcards. Pileup is a morse code program which generates callsigns using a specified number of the SoundBlaster's voices. This simulates the sound of a CW pileup. The greater the number of voices the more difficult the program is. The idea is based on the tapes used at Amateur Radio Conventions to test people's CW skills. However it is more random and can be made more difficult! You have to use a adlib or soundblaster compatible soundcard. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pilot-link
This suite of tools allows you to upload and download programs anddata files between a Linux/UNIX machine and the PalmPilot. It has a few extra utilities that will allow for things like syncing the PalmPilot's calendar app with Ical. Note that you might still need to consult the sources for pilot-link if you would like the Python, Tcl,or Perl bindings. Install pilot-link if you want to synchronize your Palm with your RedHat Linux system. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
Tools to communicate with a 3COM Pilot PDA over a serial port. pilot-link is a set of tools that communicate with a 3COM Pilot PDA. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pilot-link-perl
Perl tools to communicate with a 3COM Pilot PDA over a serial port. This package provides Perl programs with a means of communicating directly with a Pilot. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pilot-manager
PalmPilot PIM, UI, and Conduit Manager PilotManager is a tool that allows you to synchronize databases on your 3Com PalmPilot with applications on your Unix platform. It is a full Hotsync daemon that is user extensible. Developers can write their own conduits to synchronize Pilot databases with the desktop application of their choice. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pilot-template
Code generator for PalmPilot programs pilot-template will generate skeleton code, Makefiles, icons, etc. for programming for the Palm Pilot. It is best used in conjunction with prc-tools (lets you compile for the Pilot on your Debian machine) and pilrc (the Pilot resource compiler), which are also available as Debian packages. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pilrc
PalmOS resource compiler and editor PilRC is a resource compiler for PDAs running the Pal operation system. It is intended for use with the GCC cross-compiler for PalmOS that is provided in the prc-tools package. This version of PilRC also includes pilrcui, a GTK-based beta-quality X frontend to PilRC. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Pine is a very popular, easy to use, full-featured email user agent that includes a simple text editor called pico. Pine supports MIME extensions and can also be used to read news. Pine also supports IMAP, mail, and MH style folders. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
An alternative info-file viewer pinfo is an viewer for Info documents, which is based on ncurses. The key-commands are in the style of lynx. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Pinfo is an info file (or man page) viewer with a user interface similar to the Lynx Web browser interface. Pinfo supports regular expression searching and is based on the ncurses library. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
The "ping" command is built into both Windows and UNIX machines as a universal way of testing network response time and performance. The name is really based off the similarity to sonar pings, though many people have create a post hoc acronym "Packet INternet Groper". Example: The ping-of-death attack used IP fragmentation to crash systems. It was so named because the ping program built-in to Windows could be easily told to fragment packets this way. Key point: Even though the ping program is simple, it can be abused. Some versions can be commanded to send packets as fast as possible, which is often done to flood networks. Most versions allow the packet size to be set to a large size, forcing fragmentation. When used with the flood above, it can overload machines since fragmentation reassembly is so slow. Contrast: There is an IRC command called "PING" that is unrelated to the ICMP ping. It is simply the text string "PING", where the target replies with "PONG". From Hacking-Lexicon
To check if a server is running. From the sound that a sonar systems makes in movies, you know, when they are searching for a submarine. From Matisse
[from the submariners' term for a sonar pulse] 1. n. Slang term for a small network message (ICMP ECHO) sent by a computer to check for the presence and alertness of another. The Unix command ping(8) can be used to do this manually (note that ping(8)'s author denies the widespread folk etymology that the name was ever intended as acronym for `Packet INternet Groper'). Occasionally used as a phone greeting. See ACK, also ENQ. 2. vt. To verify the presence of. 3. vt. To get the attention of. 4. vt. To send a message to all members of a mailing list requesting an ACK (in order to verify that everybody's addresses are reachable). "We haven't heard much of anything from Geoff, but he did respond with an ACK both times I pinged jargon-friends." 5. n. A quantum packet of happiness. People who are very happy tend to exude pings; furthermore, one can intentionally create pings and aim them at a needy party (e.g., a depressed person). This sense of ping may appear as an exclamation; "Ping!" (I'm happy; I am emitting a quantum of happiness; I have been struck by a quantum of happiness). The form "pingfulness", which is used to describe people who exude pings, also occurs. (In the standard abuse of language, "pingfulness" can also be used as an exclamation, in which case it's a much stronger exclamation than just "ping"!). Oppose blargh. The funniest use of `ping' to date was described in January 1991 by Steve Hayman on the Usenet group comp.sys.next. He was trying to isolate a faulty cable segment on a TCP/IP Ethernet hooked up to a NeXT machine, and got tired of having to run back to his console after each cabling tweak to see if the ping packets were getting through. So he used the sound-recording feature on the NeXT, then wrote a script that repeatedly invoked ping(8), listened for an echo, and played back the recording on each returned packet. Result? A program that caused the machine to repeat, over and over, "Ping ... ping ... ping ..." as long as the network was up. He turned the volume to maximum, ferreted through the building with one ear cocked, and found a faulty tee connector in no time. From Jargon Dictionary
send ICMP ECHO_REQUEST packets to network hosts From whatis
pingus
Free Lemmings(tm) clone Pingus is a free Lemmings clone covered under the GPL. Pingus uses ClanLib, which allows you to compile Pingus under Windows and Linux, other operating systems might follow. A Windows version isn't available, but it should be possible to compile it from source. Under Linux it is possible to play Pingus under X or in fullscreen, using svgalib or OpenPTC, it runs in 640x480x16bpp. Pingus will have two main modes, one will be a full featured lemmings clone, with all of the basic actions (digger, bridger, etc.) and extensible to include new action and levels. The other mode will be a worms clone, with bazooka pingus, different weapons, etc. At the moment the lemmings mode makes good progress, all basic pingus are painted and the implementation of them goes on. I haven't started to implement the worms mode yet, this will follow when I am finish with the lemmings mode. Both modes will have sub modes for multiplay, over Internet, LAN or split screen. This package contains only the executable binary. URL: http://pingus.seul.orgurl: http://pingus.seul.org From Debian 3.0r0 APT
lightweight finger From whatis
A programming device that lets you use the output of one process as the input of another. You must use a vertical bar (|) between two command invocations to indicate piping. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
In DOS and UNIX a symbol that tells the operating system to send the output of one command to another command rather than display this output. In the following example, the pipe (represented by the | symbol) tells DOS tosend the output of the TREE command to the MORE command; the MORE command then displays the TREE result page by page on-screen: TREE C:\ | MORE See filter and input/output (I/O) redirection. From QUECID
n. [common] Idiomatically, one's connection to the Internet; in context, the expansion "bit pipe" is understood. A "fat pipe" is a line with T1 or higher capacity. A person with a 28.8 modem might be heard to complain "I need a bigger pipe". From Jargon Dictionary
pipe line
a sequence of commands connected by pipes. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
pipenightdreams
Connect pipes to get the water flowing from inlet to outlet. If you know the old arcade-game "Pipe Dreams", you'll instantly recognize this. The goal is to connect different pipe segments to let the water flow from the inlet and through as many pipes as possible, until it finally reaches the outlet. This requires an even combination of speed, skill and foresight. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pipes and sockets
Special files that programs use to communicate with one another. They are rarely seen, but you might be able to see a socket or two in the /dev/directory. From Complete-Idiot's Guide to Linux
pivot_root
change the root file system From whatis
pixelize
Create an image consisting of many small images Pixelize is a program that will use many scaled down images to try to duplicate, as closely as possible, another image. Pixelize works by splitting up the image you want rendered (or duplicated) into a grid of small rectangular areas. Each area is analyzed, and replaced with an image chosen from a large database of images. Pixelize tries to pick images that best matches each area. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pixmap
A pixmap editor. Pixmap is a tool for creating or editing rectangular images made up of colored pixels, i.e., pixmaps. Pixmaps are intensively used in X to define window backgrounds, icon images, etc. These are for example used as icons on the desktop or in the debian menu. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pk2bm
create a bitmap from a TeX pkfont From whatis
pkf
Perl Kanji code conversion Filter Pkf is a perl script and has features as nkf (Network Kanji Filter). This converts from an input code including one of JIS, SJIS, Japanese EUC to a code another assigned one. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pkg-config
program and autoconf macro to gather compile/link flags pkg-config is a program to get compile and link flags for libraries you're linking with. It requires the library package to install a description file with the needed information. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pkgconfig
The pkgconfig tool determines compilation options. For each required library, it reads the configuration file and outputs the necessary compiler and linker flags. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
pkgconfig is a program which helps you gather information to makelife easier when you are compiling a program for those programs which support it.In fact, it's required to build certain packages. From Mandrake 9.0 RPM
pkglist
Package List Correcter Pkglist is the package list correcter, which help us generating mini Debian. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pkill
pkspxy
PGP Public Key Server Proxy Daemon This package implements a caching proxy to be used between any program which speaks the HKP protocol for PGP public key exchange, and any HKP-capable key server (this will probably be pks). From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pkspxyc
PGP Public Key Server Proxy Client pkspxyc is the "smart" client to be used with the PKS proxy server. More generally, it can be used as a HKP client with almost any PGP key server. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pktogf
convert packed font files to generic font files From whatis
pktrace
Converts Metafont fonts into Type1 fonts pktrace is a small Python program that lets you trace a TeX bitmap font (a METAFONT font) into a PFA or PFB font (A PostScript Type1 Scalable Font). It is licensed under the GNU GPL. Type1 fonts offer many advantages over bitmaps, as they allow PostScript files to render correctly on printers with many resolutions. Moreover, Ghostscript can generate much better PDF, if given scalable fonts. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pktype
verify and translate a packed font bitmap file to plain text From whatis
pl2pm
Rough tool to translate Perl4 .pl files to Perl5 .pm modules. From whatis
plain-ASCII
/playn-as'kee/ Syn. flat-ASCII. From Jargon Dictionary
plaintext
A message that is not encrypted and therefore easily read. Key point: Depending upon context, plaintext can refer to the contents of a message before encryption, after it has been decrypted, or even a message that is in the "clear" and not encrypted at all. Key point: Many networking protocol protocols use plaintext passwords that can simply be sniffed off the wire. From Hacking-Lexicon
X/Motif day planner (dynamically compiled with LessTif) Plan is a schedule planner based on X/Motif. It displays a month calendar similar to xcal, but every day box is large enough to show appointments in small print. By pressing on a day box, the appointments for that day can be listed and edited. Appointments are entered with the following information (everything except the time is optional): - the date, time, and length of the appointment - an optional text message to be printed, - an optional script to be executed, - early-warn and late-warn triggers that precede the alarm time - repetitions: [n-th] weekdays, days-of-the-month, every n days, yearly - optional fast command-line appointment entry - flexible ways to specify holidays and vacations - extensive context help - multiuser capability using the netplan server, provided by the netplan package From Debian 3.0r0 APT
plan file
n. [Unix] On systems that support finger, the `.plan' file in a user's home directory is displayed when the user is fingered. This feature was originally intended to be used to keep potential fingerers apprised of one's location and near-future plans, but has been turned almost universally to humorous and self-expressive purposes (like a sig block). See also Hacking X for Y. A recent innovation in plan files has been the introduction of "scrolling plan files" which are one-dimensional animations made using only the printable ASCII character set, carriage return and line feed, avoiding terminal specific escape sequences, since the finger command will (for security reasons; see letterbomb) not pass the escape character. Scrolling .plan files have become art forms in miniature, and some sites have started competitions to find who can create the longest running, funniest, and most original animations. Various animation characters include: Centipede: mmmmme Lorry/Truck: oo-oP Andalusian Video Snail: [email protected]/ and a compiler (ASP) is available on Usenet for producing them. See also twirling baton. From Jargon Dictionary
planner-el
The Emacs Planner This package extends emacs-wiki to act as a day planner. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
MIDI player Playmidi is a MIDI file player that will playback to FM, GUS, and external MIDI. It also supports Creative Music Files (CMF) and Microsoft RIFF (RMI) files and large MIDI archives from games such as Ultima 7. There are 3 interfaces: text only, svgalib, and X. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
playmp3list
Another front-end to mpg123 with theme support Main features: o Displays a large scrollable playlist o Browse playlists, directories and 'virtual playlists', even while playing o Fully configurable key mappings and color schemes in a playmp3listrc file o Real-time toggling of shuffle/repeat modes o Instant jumps to one of 10 configurable directories/playlists o Standard player controls o PCM volume changing o Time elapsed and song format displays o Optional ID3v1 tag extraction in the playlist o Full/short (beautified) filename display in playlist o Command-line options to quickly override rc file settings o Uses mpg123 for decoding From Debian 3.0r0 APT
plex86
PC virtualization program to run x86 operating systems. Plex86 is an extensible free PC virtualization software program which will allow PC and workstation users to run multiple operating systems concurrently on the same machine. Plex86 is able to run several operating systems, including MSDOS, FreeDOS, Windows9x/NT, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD and NetBSD. It will run as much of the operating system and application software natively as possible, the rest being emulated by the PC virtualization monitor. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
plex86-kernel-src
kernel code for Plex86 This package includes sources of the Plex86 kernel code. You can use them to build the linux module required to run Plex86. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
plib1
Portability Libraries: Run-time package, stable release Provides a Joystick interface, a simple GUI built on top of OpenGL, some standard geometry functions, a sound library and a simple scene graph API built on top of OpenGL. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
plib1.5
Portability Libraries: Run-time package, unstable release Provides a Joystick interface, a simple GUI built on top of OpenGL, some standard geometry functions, a sound library and a simple scene graph API built on top of OpenGL. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
plipconfig
fine tune PLIP device parameters From whatis
plld
Create a SWI-Prolog embedded executable From whatis
pload
Program to monitor network device statistics Pload is a program to monitor ppp network device statistics and graphs information using Athena stripchart widgets. It can monitor any device that reports statistics to /proc/net/dev including ethernet, plip, loopback etc. It shows totals and current rates for a given ppp interface and is customizable to show using X resources. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
starts up, shuts down or lists the log of PPP connections From whatis
ploticus
A script driven business graphics package Ploticus is script-driven, which makes it suitable for automated, unattended uses, or for applications that will be run again and again. In general, ploticus is good at making graphs like you would see in newspapers and news magazines, business publications, journals for medical and social sciences, and so on. Ploticus is not a function or mathematical plotting package like gnuplot, nor would it be a good choice for applications where mathematical formulas or scientific notations are to be rendered as an integral part of the data display. Ploticus is also not intended as a "marketing" graphics package. Its goal is to display data crisply without extra decoration and distracting "dingbats" that cloud the picture. Ploticus supports awide range of output options, including jpeg (Joint Photographics Experts Group format), png (Portable Network Graphics format) , svg (Simple Vector Graphics), bmp (Microsoft BitMaP), ps (PostScript), and X11. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
plotmtv
multipurpose X11 plotting program. PLOTMTV's capabilities include 2D line and scatter plots (x-vs-y), contour plots, 3D surface, line and scatter plots as well as vector plots. The program has an rough but functional Graphical User Interface, through which it is possible to zoom in, zoom out, pan, toggle between 2D and 3D plots, and rotate 3D plots. Both color and grayscale postscript output are supported. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
plotutils
The GNU plotutils (plotting utilities) package. The GNU plotting utilities include programs for plotting two-dimensional scientific data. They are built on top of GNU `libplot', a library for device-independent two-dimensional vector graphics. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
plplot
Scientific plotting library PLplot is relatively small, portable, freely distributable, and is rich enough to satisfy most users. It has a wide range of plot types including line (linear, log), contour, 3D, fill, and almost 1000 characters (including Greek and mathematical) in its extended font set. The package is designed to make it easy to quickly get graphical output; only a handful of function calls is typically required. For more advanced use, virtually all aspects of plotting are configurable. APIs are provided for C, C++, and Fortran (Tcl/Tk bindings are available in a separate package plplot-tcl). A program for rendering Tektronix vector files is also included in this package. See http://emma.la.asu.edu/plplot for more information on PLplot. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
plplot-tcl
Tcl/Tk support for PLplot, a plotting library This package contains the Tcl/Tk support for PLplot, a scientific plotting library: shared and static libraries, Tcl modules, some programs for interactive use of PLplot (plrender, plserver, and pltcl), and utility programs for converting PLplot meta files (plpr and plm2gif). See http://emma.la.asu.edu/plplot for more information on PLplot. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
plptools
Access Psion series 5 over a serial link This package lets you access Psion drives over a serial link. You can mount them, pseudo NFS style, or access them via ftp-like commands. The software is partially based on p3nfs, which is also packed for Debian, but plptools uses the native Psion protocol, whereas p3nfs requires a program to be installed on the Psion. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
plrc
SWI-Prolog resource archiver From whatis
pltotf
convert property list files to TeX font metric (tfm) format From whatis
plucker
Pluck stuff from the web and read on your PalmOS device Plucks stuff from the web (or any URL), and encodes them appropriately for viewing on a PalmOS device. Very flexible in the way sites are plucked, e.g. link depth, images etc. Includes the PalmOS viewer program. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
IRC proxy, stationing, logging, and bot program (pirc). plum works as personal proxy, stationing, logging, and bot program on IRC (Internet Relay Chat). It has many modules, so the user can use a lot of functions. It is also easy to customize its configurations. Note that its documents are only available in Japanese. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
plwm
Window Manager Library for Python A window manager library for Python, with an example window manager. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Polytechnique Montreal Modula-3 The Modula-3 distribution of Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal is based on the DEC SRC Modula-3 programming environment. Modula-3 is a systems programming language that descends from Mesa, Modula-2, Cedar, and Modula-2+. It also resembles its cousins Object Pascal, Oberon, and Euclid. The goal of Modula-3 is to be as simple and safe as it can be while meeting the needs of modern systems programmers. Instead of exploring new features, they studied the features of the Modula family of languages that have proven themselves in practice and tried to simplify them into a harmonious language. They found that most of the successful features were aimed at one of two main goals: greater robustness, and a simpler, more systematic type system. Modula-3 retains one of Modula-2's most successful features, the provision for explicit interfaces between modules. It adds objects and classes, exception handling, garbage collection, lightweight processes (or threads), and the isolation of unsafe features. A large number of platform independent libraries are available for easily constructing distributed, graphical, multi-threaded applications. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pmake
4.4BSD make (pmake). Pmake is a program designed to simplify the maintenance of other programs. Its input is a list of specifications as to the files upon which programs and other files depend. mkdep, a program to construct Makefile dependency lists, is also included. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pmap_dump
print a list of all registered RPC programs From whatis
pmap_set
library routines for remote procedure calls From whatis
set the list of registered RPC programs From whatis
pmidi
a command line midi player for ALSA ALSA is an effort to create a modules sound system for Linux, while maintaining full compatibility with OSS/Lite. This is a straightforward command line program to play midi files through the ALSA sequencer. As you can specify the client and port to connect to on the command line it is also useful for testing ALSA or clients that need to receive sequencer events. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pmidi-0.9
A command line midi player for ALSA 0.9 series ALSA is an effort to create a modules sound system for Linux, while maintaining full compatibility with OSS/Lite. This program works with ALSA drivers version 0.9 series. This is a straightforward command line program to play midi files through the ALSA sequencer. As you can specify the client and port to connect to on the command line it is also useful for testing ALSA or clients that need to receive sequencer events. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
An MUA framework in Python PythonMS (PMS) is an MUA framework in Python, with pluggable back-end and front ends. Supported front ends are CLOOM, pms and pythonms From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pmtools
Perl module tools Perl module tools is a suite of small tools that help manage and inspect perl modules, perl Plain Old Documentation files, and perl programs. Some of the things these tools can do include: - show the full path to a module - show the version and description of a module - list all installed modules with descriptions - show what files a given program or module loads at compile time - show what symbols a module exports - list the methods of a class - display the source code of a function of a module From Debian 3.0r0 APT
A Preprocessor for MusiXTeX PMX is a preprocessor for MusiXTeX that produces near-publication quality scores and parts with far less effort than would be required using MusiXTeX alone. Among the new features are several that facilitate detailed editing, for example fine-tuning positions of dots, ornaments, and xtuplet numbers. It now also generates MIDI output! Author: Don Simons <[email protected]> URL: http://icking-music-archive.sunsite.dk/musixtex/software/pmx/ From Debian 3.0r0 APT
An optimizer for PNG (Portable Network Graphics) files. Pngcrush is an optimizer for PNG (Portable Network Graphics) files. Its main purpose is to reduce the size of the PNG IDAT datastream by trying various compression levels and PNG filter methods. It also can be used to remove unwanted ancillary chunks, or to add certain chunks including gAMA, tRNS, and textual chunks. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pnm2ppa
PPM to PPA converter Using pnm2ppa it's possible to run HP-GDI printers on Linux. These printers are normally "Windows-only" and use the PPA protocol which is proprietary. pnm2ppa supports color and is supposed to work faster than pbm2ppa. pnm2ppa supports the following printers: HP Deskjet 7XX Series, HP Deskjet 820 Series and HP Deskjet 1000 Series. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Pnm2ppa is a color driver for HP PPA host-based printers such as the HP710C, 712C, 720C, 722C, 820Cse, 820Cxi, 1000Cse, and 1000Cxi. Pnm2ppa accepts Ghostscript output in PPM format and sends it to the printer in PPA format. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
pnscan
Multi threaded port scanner. Pnscan is a multi threaded port scanner that can scan a large network very quickly. If does not have all the features that nmap have but is much faster. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
po-utils
Tool collection for handling PO files PO utilities is meant to become a collection of tools for handling PO files. Currently it contains just the xpot utility, which is a replacement for xgettext that can not only handle C and C++ source code, but also Python. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pod2html
convert .pod files to .html files From whatis
pod2latex
convert pod documentation to latex format From whatis
pod2man
Convert POD data to formatted *roff input From whatis
pod2text
Convert POD data to formatted ASCII text From whatis
pod2usage
print usage messages from embedded pod docs in files From whatis
podchecker
check the syntax of POD format documentation files From whatis
podselect
print selected sections of pod documentation on standard output From whatis
Cross-platform gettext catalog editor Generator for po to mo. It is built with wxWindows toolkit and can run on Unix or Windows. It aims to provide convenient way of editing gettext catalogs. It features UTF-8 support, fuzzy and untranslated records highlighting, whitespace highlighting, references browser, header editing and can be used to create new catalogs or update existing catalogs from source code with a single click. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
poff
pointerize
Internationalization utilities, based on gettext pointerize is a set of tools used to generate message catalogs from a set of specially formated C source files. Those message catalogs are loaded at run-time, making it possible to have one binary that displays messages in several languages. It's based on gettext, but it makes smaller binary message catalogs (a must when one is making internationalized boot floppies). The programmer may use his gettexttified C source files just applying one small change to the main() function. The translator will work with the well known PO format. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
policy independence
A characterstic of the X window system in which windows can look and act any way the software developers want. This idea is the converse of the idea that, if all the windows on your screen look and act in a similar way, they will be easier for you to use. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
Preference/Property dialogs maker for GNOME PonG is a library for making preference/property dialogs. By default it does very simple dialog layout, however you can also use glade to design parts of the dialogs. This package contains the dialog editor. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pooltype
display a WEB pool file From whatis
/pop/ [from the operation that removes the top of a stack, and the fact that procedure return addresses are usually saved on the stack] (also capitalized `POP') 1. vt. To remove something from a stack or PDL. If a person says he/she has popped something from his stack, that means he/she has finally finished working on it and can now remove it from the list of things hanging overhead. 2. When a discussion gets to a level of detail so deep that the main point of the discussion is being lost, someone will shout "Pop!", meaning "Get back up to a higher level!" The shout is frequently accompanied by an upthrust arm with a finger pointing to the ceiling. 3. [all-caps, as `POP'] Point of Presence, a bank of dial-in lines allowing customers to make (local) calls into an ISP. This is borderline techspeak. From Jargon Dictionary
pop-before-smtp
watch log for pop/imap auth, notify Postfix to allow relay Spam prevention requires preventing open relaying through email servers. However, legitimate users want to be able to relay. If legitimate users always stayed in one spot, they'd be easy to describe to the daemon. However, what with roving laptops, logins from home, etc., legitimate users refuse to stay in one spot. pop-before-smtp watches the mail log, looking for successful pop/imap logins, and posts the originating IP address into a database which can be checked by Postfix, to allow relaying for people who have recently downloaded their email. Contrary to other similar tools pop-before-smtp needs no hacking in the mail daemons. On the other hand it requires the pop3/imap daemons to run on the same machine as pop-before-smtp and postfix. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pop3browser
Allows to check a pop3 mailbox before downloading any mail. It is intended to delete unwanted (SPAM) mails before downloading via a low-bandwidth connection. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
popa3d
A tiny POP3 daemon, designed with security as the primary goal popa3d is fast, small and secure pop3 daemon. It's written from scratch by Solar Designer for OWL (Openwall Gnu/*/Linux). Popa3d can work both in standalone or inetd mode. For more information see DESIGN file. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
- manipulate POP authorization DB From whatis
popcheck
Small tool to view and delete messages on a pop3-server. Using this tool one can view sender, subject and size of messages and delete messages from a pop3-server without downloading them. It has nearly the same functionality as pop3browser, but with a ncurses gui. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
poppassd
Password change server for Eudora and NUPOP This package provides a daemon for changing passwords on POP mail accounts, a feature common to Eudora and other MacOS/Win32 mail user agents. This feature is also commonly used for TCP loopback password changing from web scripting languages like PHP or Perl, so that the webserver process doesn't need to be run as root (on in the shadow group). This version of poppassd changes passwords via PAM (as opposed to other versions of the same daemon that used the newusers(8) application to change passwords), allowing for great flexibility. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Popt is a C library for parsing command line parameters. Popt was heavily influenced by the getopt() and getopt_long() functions, but it improves on them by allowing more powerful argument expansion. Poptcan parse arbitrary argv[] style arrays and automatically set variables based on command line arguments. Popt allows command line arguments to be aliased via configuration files and includes utility functions for parsing arbitrary strings into argv[] arrays using shell-like rules. From Mandrake 9.0 RPM
popularity-contest
Vote for your favourite packages automatically. When you install this package, it sets up a cron job that will anonymously e-mail the Debian developers periodically with statistics about your most used Debian packages. This information helps us make decisions such as which packages should go on the first Debian CD. Also, we can improve future versions of Debian so that the most popular packages are the ones which are installed automatically for new users. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
In TCP/IP, a port is an extension of an Internet address that tells which program is to receive the data. In other words, if I send data to 192.0.2.111, port 110, then I'm talking to the POP3 e-mail service. However, if I send something to port 80 on the same machine, then I'm talking to the web server on that machine. Key point: I can have two URLs that look like http://robertgraham.com/ and http://robertgraham.com/. These two URLs access different web server programs running on the same machine, one at port 80 and that other at port 90. Misconception: Many people believe that the port correctly identifies the protocol that runs on that port. For example, the port 110 has been assigned to the POP3 e-mail service. However, even though this is the correct port for the protocol, somebody could put a different service on this port, such as HTTP. In this example, I could then supply URLs that looked like http://www.robertgraham.com:110/. From Hacking-Lexicon
On the Internet port often refers to a number that is part of a URL, appearing after a colon (:) right after the domain name. Every service on an Internet server listens on a particular port number on that server. Most services have standard port numbers, e.g. Web servers normally listen on port 80. Services can also listen on non-standard ports, in which case the port number must be specified in a URL when accessing the server, so you might see a URL of the form: gopher://peg.cwis.uci.edu:7000/ This shows a gopher server running on a non-standard port (the standard gopher port is 70). Finally, port also refers to translating a piece of software to bring it from one type of computer system to another, e.g. to translate a Windows program so that is will run on a Macintosh. From Matisse
In hacker reconnaissance, a port scan attempts to connect to all 65536 ports on a machine in order to see if anybody is listening on those ports. Contrast: A stealth scan attempts to evade detection. The most common kind is a TCP half-open scan which fails to complete the three-way handshake. This prevents the application listening on a port from being notified that a connection attempt has taken place, so it won't log that fact. Most "stealth" scans attempt to evade logging on the host, but this makes more distinctive signatures that intrusion detection systems can detect. Key point: Ports scans are not illegal in many places, those laws have yet to be written on the subject. The Norwegian Supreme court ruled that they are not illegal because they don't actually compromise the system. There is also the technical problem that they can easily be spoofed, so it is hard to prove guilt. There is even the third problem that virtually any machine on the Internet can be tickled into scanning somebody else; the hacker doesn't break into that third party, but triggers special conditions that causes the effect of a port scan. Controversy: Many people think that port scanning is an overt hostile act and should be made illegal. Contrast: Full port scans of all 65536 ports are rarely seen, especially since they are so obvious. Instead, hackers will strobe for just the ports he/she is interested in. These strobes are for typically fewer than 10 ports. Also, the hacker will often sweep thousands (or millions) of machines rather than a single machine looking for any system that might be vulnerable. Tool: The best tool for doing port scans is nmap from http://www.insecure.org/nmap. From Hacking-Lexicon
Pertaining to software that can be ported, or modified to run in another environment. Linux is an example of a portable system. Because all the programming that is hardware-specific is restricted to the kernel, a programmer can port Linux to a new computer system by changing only the kernel. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
portmap
DARPA port to RPC program number mapper From whatis
The RPC portmapper Portmap is a server that converts RPC (Remote Procedure Call) program numbers into DARPA protocol port numbers. It must be running in order to make RPC calls. Services that use RPC include NFS and NIS. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
The portmapper program is a security tool that prevents theft of NIS(YP), NFS, and other sensitive information via the portmapper. A portmapper manages RPC connections, which are used by protocols like NFS and NIS. The portmap package should be installed on any machine which acts as a server for protocols using RPC. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
portmapper (rpcbind, portmap)
In the UNIX RPC protocol suite, portmapper is responsible for locating which port number a particular RPC-based service is using. RPC programs are assigned a well-known "RPC program number" rather than well-known ports. In the RPC suite, the only program that is assigned a "well-known" port is the portmapper service at port 111. All the rest obtain a randomly assigned port number when they start up, then tell portmapper which port they are using. For example, the rpc.mountd RPC program is assigned the well-known program number of 100005. When it starts up, it might obtain the port number like 635. It then registers with the local portmapper (on the same machine) and gives it the [100005,635] combination. When a client program whishes to contact rpc.mountd, it first contacts portmapper and asks "where is program 1000005?". Portmapper replies with the current port, at which point the client program proceeds to talk with rpc.mountd on the correct port. Key point: In theory, you must have access to port 111 on the target machine in order to reach any RPC service. Therefore, some firewall administrators block access to port 111 on the mistaken belief that this will protect them. This belief is wrong because while it prevents an intruder from easily finding the target RPC services, they can still hunt for them. Using nmap, an intruder can first do a port scan to find open ports, then use the "NULL proc grinding" feature of nmap to figure out which RPC is listening on that port. Also, sometimes Sun puts another portmapper at a high port (like 32773) From Hacking-Lexicon
portslave
Terminal server that does PPP and authenticates via RADIUS This package provides a program named portslave which will use AT commands to answer a modem when it rings. It will then display a login: prompt at which the user can enter a user-name and password. If the user sends PPP data then portslave will run it's own pppd instead and authenticate the user via PAP. When the user-name and password are received they will be verified via a RADIUS server. At the end of the call the accounting data will be written to the RADIUS server. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
PalmOS Emulator An emulator for Palm Computing organizers. Requires a ROM file, which can be transferred from a physical Palm device, or downloaded from Palm's website (if you sign a license agreement). From Debian 3.0r0 APT
post-el
emacs major mode for editing mail This is an emacs major mode for use in conjunction with mutt, the spiffy *nix mailreader du jour (see http://www.mutt.org/), or slrn, the spiffy *nix newsreader du jour (see http://slrn.sourceforge.net/), or any other mailreader or newsreader that supports an external editor. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
post-faq
Post periodic FAQs to Usenet newsgroups. The purpose of this package is to handle the posting of periodic informational postings to the USENET using cron. For this it adds appropriate Message-ID, Expires, Supersedes, and References headers. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
postaci
Web Based Protocol Independent(IMAP, POP3) Mail Program Postaci can handle both protools and the defaul protocol can be changed from a single configuration file. Postaci is platform independent. It can work on any operating system which PHP supports. Postaci is also database independent. It can handle with MySQL, mSQL, Microsoft SQL, Sybase,PostgreSQL. It uses very complicated database operations for handling with POP3 folder simulation. Postaci is Turkish word for Postman. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
SMTP benchmark - the mad postman. This program starts a specified number of processes to send as much random data to random accounts as possible. Adds the X-Postal header to email it sends, so if someone uses it unethically then it will be easy to filter via procmail. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
make big posters out of PostScript pages Poster takes a one-page PostScript file and scales it to a specified size. It can tile the resulting image into multiple smaller pages that can be pasted together to form the big poster. Poster prefers EPS as its input although freer forms of PostScript are also understood. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
A high-performance mail transport agent Postfix is Wietse Venema's mail transport agent that started life as an alternative to the widely-used Sendmail program. Postfix attempts to be fast, easy to administer, and secure, while at the same time being sendmail compatible enough to not upset existing users. Thus, the outside has a sendmail-ish flavor, but the inside is completely different. This package does not have SASL support. For SASL support, install postfix-tls. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Postfix is a Mail Transport Agent (MTA), supporting LDAP, SMTP AUTH (SASL), TLS and running in a chroot environment. Postfix is Wietse Venema's mailer that started life as an alternative to the widely-used Sendmail program. Postfix attempts to be fast, easy to administer, and secure, while at the same time being sendmail compatible enough to not upset existing users. Thus, the outside has a sendmail-ish flavor, but the inside is completely different. This software was formerly known as VMailer. It was released by the end of 1998 as the IBM Secure Mailer. From then on it has lived on as Postfix. This rpm supports LDAP, SMTP AUTH (trough cyrus-sasl) and TLS. If you need MySQL too, rebuild the srpm --with mysql. From Mandrake 9.0 RPM
Object-relational SQL database, descended from POSTGRES. PostgreSQL is an object-relational database, which supports a large part of SQL-92. It is under continuous development and each release implements more of the SQL standard, to the extent that it is now probably more compliant than many commercial databases. It also supports some object-oriented features. As compared to MySQL, PostgreSQL is more fully featured - most importantly, PostgreSQL supports transactions on all tables, something which is essential to multi-user update of a database and referential integrity, which, equally, is essential to a reliable database. The trade-off is that it can be slower, though again, each release sees improvements in efficiency. For more information, see <http://OpenACS.org/why-not-mysql.html>. This package provides the backend features; you need postgresql-client or some other front-end to be able to access them. A package providing ident-server is needed if you want to authenticate remote connections with identd. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
PostgreSQL is an advanced Object-Relational database management system (DBMS) that supports almost all SQL constructs (including transactions, subselects and user-defined types and functions). The postgresql package includes the client programs and libraries that you'll need to access a PostgreSQL DBMS server. These PostgreSQLclient programs are programs that directly manipulate the internal structure of PostgreSQL databases on a PostgreSQL server. These client programs can be located on the same machine with the PostgreSQL server, or may be on a remote machine which accesses a PostgreSQLserver over a network connection. This package contains the client libraries for C and C++, as well as command-line utilities for managing PostgreSQL databases on a PostgreSQL server. If you want to manipulate a PostgreSQL database on a remote PostgreSQL server, you need this package. You also need to install this package if you're installing the postgresql-server package. From Mandrake 9.0 RPM
postilion
An X Mail User Agent which handles MIME, PGP and Spelling. It is mainly written in C but the user interface is done in tcl/tk. The following is a non exhaustive list of the capabilities: * Multilingual Interface * MIME Support * Composing * Multiple Address Books * Message Database * Virtual Folders * Message Hold * Watcher * Spell Checking "As One Types" * POP3 and IMAP Folders * Supports Delivery Status Notifications * Supports PGP/MIME From Debian 3.0r0 APT
A program sending news Sending news from your local inn newsserver to another host From Debian 3.0r0 APT
postmark
File system benchmark from NetApp. Benchmark that's based around small file operations similar to those used on large mail servers and news servers. Has been ported to NT so should be good for comparing OSs. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
n. The email contact and maintenance person at a site connected to the Internet or UUCPNET. Often, but not always, the same as the admin. The Internet standard for electronic mail (RFC-822) requires each machine to have a `postmaster' address; usually it is aliased to this person. From Jargon Dictionary
Post Usenet articles via NNTP from the command line Postnews is a small command line utility written in Python that posts Usenet articles onto remote servers. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
potool
A program to aid manipulation of gettext po files This package contains the filter program 'potool', as well as a few helper scripts: poedit - helps editing of po files in your favourite editor postats, postats1 - prints statistics of how much of a file is translated From Debian 3.0r0 APT
power-applet
GNOME battery monitor applet GNOME panel applet to read /proc/apm. It has theming (evil) and does nifty stuff like animations when low on power (because when you're low on power, you want to waste cpu cycles on animation). From Debian 3.0r0 APT
powermanga
A vertical shoot 'em up for X11 with colourful 3D graphics. Powermanga is a shoot 'em up with 60 different enemies, 40 meteors, numerous weapons, many end of level baddies, spaceship power-ups and lots of other surprises. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
poweroff
stop the system. From whatis
powerful terminal emulator for GNOME PowerShell is a GNOME/GTK+ based terminal emulator which supports many terminals in a single window (limited only by available RAM). Each terminal is given a "notebook" tab which makes switching between terminals easy. It also has URL recognition capabilities and things like transparency, pixmap backgrounds, etc. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
powertweak
Tool to tune system for optimal performance Powertweak is a tool for tweaking Linux systems to peak performance. It tunes PCI devices to use optimal settings and enables performance enhancing features of the CPU(s). This package contains no files. It does only ensure that you install the following packages: powertweakd, powertweak-extra, powertweak-text, powertweak-gtk From Debian 3.0r0 APT
powertweakd
Tool to tune system for optimal performance Powertweak is a tool for tweaking Linux systems to peak performance. It tunes PCI devices to use optimal settings and enables performance enhancing features of the CPU(s). To use all of powertweak's features you need to be running a Linux kernel which supports the /proc/bus/pci and /dev/cpu/<n> interfaces. This package contains the daemon that needs to be run to do the actual tuning. You need either powertweak-text or powertweak-gtk to choose which tweaks you want to perform on your system in addition to this package. The package powertweak-extra contains some additional tweaking plugins. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
powstatd
Configurable UPS monitoring daemon Assuming you have a relay-based "dumb" UPS that corresponds with your machine via a serial connection, you should be able to configure powstatd in just a few minutes. It is easily configured, and can be expected to support most "dumb" UPS supplies. UPS models known to work: CyberPower PowerSL series CyberPower Power2000 1500VA CyberPower Power99 325VA, 400VA, 500VA and 720VA Some older CyberPower 385VA and 450VA models TrippLite Internet Office 500 UPS Various older APC units. Powstatd can also be configured to allow a master machine to control (Via a network connection) up to 2 (by default) additional slave machines connected to the same UPS. This allows you to run several machines off the same UPS, with only one of the machines actually reading the UPS status over the serial line. See also powstatd-crypt in the non-us section. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
powstatd-crypt
Configurable UPS monitoring daemon Assuming you have a relay-based "dumb" UPS that corresponds with your machine via a serial connection, you should be able to configure powstatd in just a few minutes. It is easily configured, and can be expected to support most "dumb" UPS supplies. UPS models known to work: CyberPower PowerSL series CyberPower Power2000 1500VA CyberPower Power99 325VA, 400VA, 500VA and 720VA Some older CyberPower 385VA and 450VA models TrippLite Internet Office 500 UPS Various older APC units. Powstatd can also be configured to allow a master machine to control (Via a network connection) up to 2 (by default) additional slave machines connected to the same UPS. This allows you to run several machines off the same UPS, with only one of the machines actually reading the UPS status over the serial line. This version of powstatd uses secure cryptography to communicate between master and slave(s). See the powstatd package for a version that does not encrypt communications. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
poxml
tools for using PO-files to translate DocBook XML files This is a collection of tools that facilitate translating DocBook XML files using gettext message files (PO-files). Also included are some miscellaneous command-line utilities for manipulating DocBook XML files and PO-files. This package is part of the KDE Software Development Kit. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
ppdfilt
filter that inserts printer specific commands into print jobs ppdfilt is a filter program designed to be used within a filter script or from the command line tool to insert printer specific commands to a PostScript print job. This can be used to tell the printer to duplex or staple the print job, or tell it what paper tray to draw paper from. In the GNULpr printing environment, users do not call ppdfilt directly, but its features are accessed by using 'lpr' or 'gpr' (see) From Debian 3.0r0 APT
ppmtofb
Display netpbm graphics on Linux framebuffer devices The ppmtofb package supports displaying netpbm-format graphics (PBM, PGM and PPM) on Linux systems with framebuffer devices (available with 2.1 kernels on all platforms and 2.0 kernels on m68k). With the included fbview program, you can display virtually any picture format on any framebuffer. ppmtofb supports virtually all framebuffer devices, including vesafb and the VGA16 framebuffer for PCs. On Amigas it can take advantage of the Hold and Modify (HAM) modes for virtual truecolor display on both standard and AGA systems. Home Page: http://www.lordsutch.com/chris/ppmtofb.html From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) daemon. The Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) provides a standard way to transmit datagrams over a serial link, as well as a standard way for the machines at either end of the link (the "peers") to negotiate various optional characteristics of the link. Using PPP, a serial link can be used to transmit Internet Protocol (IP) datagrams, allowing TCP/IP connections between the peers. This package contains pppd with PAM support built-in, so `ppp-pam' package is obsolete. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
The ppp package contains the PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol) daemon and documentation for PPP support. The PPP protocol provides a method for transmitting datagrams over serial point-to-point links. PPP isusually used to dial in to an ISP (Internet Service Provider) or other organization over a modem and phone line. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
pppconfig
A text menu based utility for configuring ppp. It provides extensive explanations at each step. pppconfig supports PAP, CHAP, and chat methods of authentication. It uses the standard ppp configuration files and sets ppp up so that the standard pon and poff commands can be used to control ppp. Some features supported by pppconfig are: - Multiple ISPs with separate nameservers. - Modem detection. - Dynamic DNS. - Dial on demand. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
configure pppd From whatis
Point to Point Protocol daemon From whatis
pppdcapiplugin
plugin for pppd to communicate with CAPI-capable ISDN cards Some ISDN cards (notably the AVM passive cards, when a module from the AVM website is loaded) can be used by CAPI utilities. This is a plugin for the regular PPP daemon to use CAPI on such cards. See /usr/share/doc/pppdcapiplugin/* for some (rudimentary) info. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pppdump
convert PPP record file to readable format From whatis
PPP over Ethernet driver PPP over Ethernet (PPPoE) is a protocol used by many ADSL Internet service providers. This package allows you to connect to those PPPoE service providers. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
user-space PPPoE client. From whatis
pppoe-relay
user-space PPPoE relay agent. From whatis
pppoe-server
user-space PPPoE server From whatis
pppoe-sniff
examine network for non-standard PPPoE frames From whatis
pppoeconf
configures PPPoE/ADSL Userfriendly tool for initial configuration of a DSL (PPPoE) connection. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
configures a PPPoE (ADSL) connection From whatis
pppstats
print PPP statistics From whatis
pppstatus
console-based PPP status monitor PPPstatus is a console-based utility for displaying the status of a PPP link, including connection verification, connecting time, costs calculation, top speed, e-mail check, ip address, graphical statistics, TX and RX leds, interface selection, and more. It even supports xDSL with pppoe. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
ppthtml
A program for converting Microsoft Power Point Files .ppt The ppthtml program will take a PowerPoint 97/95 file as input and convert it to html. The output is via standard out so it can be re-directed to files or piped to filters or used as a gateway to the internet. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pptp-linux
Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) Client Client for the proprietary Microsoft Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol, PPTP. Allows connection to a PPTP based VPN as used by employers and some cable and ADSL service providers. Requires MPPE support in kernel, use package kernel-patch-mppe. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pptpd
PoPToP Point to Point Tunneling Server This implements a Virtual Private Networking Server (VPN) that is compatible with Microsoft VPN clients. It allows windows users to connect to an internal firewalled network using their dialup. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
ppxp
Yet another PPP program. PPxP is user process ppp program with Kernel/User netlink driver. PPxP provides easy setup, easy to connection(qdial), on demand dial up, IP Masquerade(experimental), IP Filtering, DNS relay, and more features. Of course, can work as ppp server. This package included standard CUI console. If use on 2.0.x kernel, need userlink kernel external driver. (see /usr/share/doc/ppxp/README.Debian) From Debian 3.0r0 APT
ppxp-applet
PPxP GNOME panel applet console PPxP GNOME panel applet console. PPxP is yet another ppp program. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
ppxp-tcltk
tk console of ppxp tk console of ppxp From Debian 3.0r0 APT
ppxp-x11
X console of ppxp X console of ppxp From Debian 3.0r0 APT
convert text files for printing From whatis
A guide to great and usually unknown features in Debian (pt only) This is a practical guide to the Debian GNU/Linux Operating System. It intends to be a reference manual for the useful features that are quite unknown to most of the Debian users. It is primarily written in Portuguese, an english translation is expected, if you want to help with this, contact me. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
prboom
clone of the legendary first person shooter Doom Doom is a 3d shoot'em'up game, written by id Software, first released in 1993. PrBoom is a version of Doom using the Simple Direct Media layer (SDL) library, which enables it to use XFree86, Linux framebuffer console, GGI, SVGALib or even color or monochrome text consoles as display. PrBoom is based on MBF and LxDoom, which in turn is based on Boom, a freely available port of Doom for DOS, written by TeamTNT (http://www.teamtnt.com/). To play you need some maps, called "WAD", the shareware version of doom is included in the doom-wad-shareware package (non-free section). You can use any other DOOM WADs as well. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
prc-tools
GCC, GDB, binutils, etc. for PDAs using the PalmOS This package provides the GNU assembler, linker, compiler, debugger, and binary utilities necessary to compile PalmOS native programs on your Debian system. The created executables may be hot-synced to your Pilot using its included cradle and the pilot-link or kpilot software, also available as Debian packages. A brief list of included software is: nm, ar, strings, strip, gcc, as, ld, gdb, txt2bitm, obj-res, and build-prc. Please see the prc-tools-doc package for detailed documentation on the standard toolchain components (gcc, as, ld, gdb etc). From Debian 3.0r0 APT
prcs
The Project Revision Control System PRCS, the Project Revision Control System, is the front end to a set of tools that (like CVS) provide a way to deal with sets of files and directories as an entity, preserving coherent versions of the entire set. Its purpose is similar to that of SCCS, RCS, and CVS, but (according to its authors, at least), it is much simpler than any of those systems. Emacs-Lisp support is distributed in a separate package, prcs-el. Another package called prcs-synch contains a tool to synchronize PRCS projects between repositories, both locally and remotely. For further information look at http://prcs.sourceforge.net From Debian 3.0r0 APT
prcs-el
ELisp support for the Project Revision Control System This package contains Emacs-Lisp add-on support for PRCS, the Project Revision Control System. It provides a useful interface for some PRCS commands (checkin, diff, info, and rekey) while editing project descriptor files (.prj). prcs-el is distributed separately from the prcs package because it depends on Emacs (or another "emacsen" flavor). From Debian 3.0r0 APT
prcs-synch
Synchronize PRCS projects between repositories The prcs-synch script tries to synchronize two PRCS (Project Revision Control System) repositories. It requires a "remote" repository, which is assumed to have recent changes, vs. a "local" repository which is out of date. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
prcs-utils
Utilities for PRCS Some utilities to be used in combination with PRCS (Project Revision Control System). Contains the following scripts: prcspatch, prcspatch2, prcsfind, prcsbranches, prcsguess, prcsentry, prcsstatus, and prcs_checkfiles. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
prcs-visualtree
Visualize PRCS projects in a graph Scripts to show PRCS (Project Revision Control System) version tree as a graph using VCG (a visualization tool for compiler graphs). From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Satellite Tracking Program with Optional Voice Output This is a satellite tracking program. It is probably mostly of interest to users of amateur satellites, but includes support for optionally announcing azimuth and elevation to help in manual antenna pointing, or optical observation of satellites. Several client programs are provided: earthtrack provides the ability to combine predict with xearth for pretty graphics, xearth must be installed to use it. geosat determines the 'look angles' for geostationary satellites based on their longitude, uses predict's data files for the groundstation location gsat graphical front-end for predicut using gtk The upstream predict sources also come with a front-end called 'map', but it is not included in the Debian package both because it requires the non-free xforms library, and because the name is too generic. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
preemptive multitasking
In an operating system, a means of running more than one program at a time. In preemptive multitasking, the operating system decides which application should receive the processor's attention. In contrast to cooperative multitasking, in which a busy application could monopolize the computer for as much as several minutes, a computer with a preemptive multitasking system seems much more responsive to user commands. Microsoft Windows 95 employs preemptive applications for 32-bit applications, but not for 16-bit applications. From QUECID
GNUstep Preferences.app Preferences.app is, functionally, a clone of NeXTstep/OPENSTEP tool of the same name. Just like the original program, it's a simple application for setting preferences for the GNUstep system, with a friendly interface. The program is simple, but powerful -- people can create new modules, called "bundles", that add new things to the program that its original developers did not think of or even intend -- that don't require recompiling the main program. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
premail
An e-mail privacy package. Premail adds support for encrypted e-mail to your mailer, using plain PGP, PGP/MIME, MOSS, or S/MIME. In addition, premail provides a seamless, transparent interface to the anonymous remailers, including full support for Mixmaster remailers and the nymservers. Nymservers provide crypto- graphically protected, fully anonymous accounts for both sending and receiving e-mail. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
prepend
/pree`pend'/ vt. [by analogy with `append'] To prefix. As with `append' (but not `prefix' or `suffix' as a verb), the direct object is always the thing being added and not the original word (or character string, or whatever). "If you prepend a semicolon to the line, the translation routine will pass it through unaltered." From Jargon Dictionary
prestimel
Tool to create presentations from a XML-file For each slide, PresTiMeL will create one (or a set of) HTML file(s), which can be shown in a Web browser of your choice. Cascading Style Sheets are used to provide the minor details of text styling, font, and color. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Prettyprinter generator for noweb Pretzel is a system that builds prettyprinters; that is programs that will take some plain ASCII source code and generate a LaTeXified version for presentation. Pretzel has hooks to integrate with noweb, so that code chunks may be prettyprinted with pretzel's generated prettyprinters. Example prettyprinter source for C, C++, Pascal, and Dijkstra's Guarded Command Language are included. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
preview-latex
Render LaTeX equations etc. in an emacs buffer Purpose of the package is to embed LaTeX environments such as display math or figures into the source buffers. Only Emacs 21 is supported and XEmacs is not supported at present. Emacs 20 is (and will be) not supported. By mouse-clicking, you can open the original text. After editing, another click will just run the region in question through LaTeX and redisplay the new results. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
primaxscan
Primax Colorado Direct scanner software. This is a stand-alone driver program for the Primax Colorado Direct scanners and compatibles (e.g. Storm Totalscan, Network Scanny MM100, Genius Colorpage Vivid+) The command must be run by root because it wants direct access to the hardware parallell port. The software seems to be written only for i386 hardware. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
execute programs via entries in the mailcap file From whatis
v. To output, even if to a screen. If a hacker says that a program "printed a message", he means this; if he refers to printing a file, he probably means it in the conventional sense of writing to a hardcopy device (compounds like `print job' and `printout', on the other hand, always refer to the latter). This very common term is likely a holdover from the days when printing terminals were the norm, perpetuated by programming language constructs like C's printf(3). See senses 1 and 2 of tty. From Jargon Dictionary
print queue
A list of files that a print spooler in the background while the computer performs other tasks in they foreground. From QUECID
In a local area network (LAN), a PC that has been dedicated to receiving and temporarily storing files to be printed, which are then doled out one by one to a printer. The print server, accessible to all the workstations in the network, runs print spooler software to manage a print queue. From QUECID
print spooler
A utility program that temporarily stores files to be printed in a print queue and doles them out one by one to the printer. See background printing, and print server. From QUECID
printenv
print all or part of environment From whatis
printer-testpages
These are sample files to check the output quality of printers. There is the CUPS test page with colour gradients, the Red Hat test pagewith image position checks, a photo test page and a text test page. From Mandrake 9.0 RPM
format and print data From whatis
formatted output conversion From whatis
printfilters-ppd
filters from the GNUlpr printing system These are a set of data conversion filters designed to work with ppdfilt. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
printop
Graphical interface to the LPRng print system. printop is a Tcl/Tk program that gives you a graphical interface to control the printers and queues for UNIX-like systems using the LPRng print system. It uses the commands lpq, lpc, lprm to get information and control the printers and you just have to click with your mouse. In a large network it shows you all the printers and gives you the full functionality of the lprng commands, so you have a good overview of what is happening. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
printtool
Tk-based printer configuration tool This is an enhanced version of the Red Hat printtool, with autodetection of printers and PPD support. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
priority interrupt
n. [from the hardware term] Describes any stimulus compelling enough to yank one right out of hack mode. Classically used to describe being dragged away by an SO for immediate sex, but may also refer to more mundane interruptions such as a fire alarm going off in the near vicinity. Also called an NMI (non-maskable interrupt), especially in PC-land. From Jargon Dictionary
prips
Print IP address on a given range prips can be used to print all IP addresses of a specified range. This allows the enhancement of the usability of tools that have been created to work on only one host at a time (e.g. whois). From Debian 3.0r0 APT
It contains encryption information and a fingerprint. It is generated locally on your system and should remain in a secure environment. If the private key is compromised, a perpetrator essentially has the code to your security system. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
privilege escalation (privilege elevation)
A classic attack against a system. A user has an account on a system, and uses that account to gain additional privileges they weren't meant to have. Key point: Virtually all local exploits are privilege escalation attacks. Key point: The most common example of this attack is through setuid programs that have known bugs in them, often through buffer overflows or race conditions. From Hacking-Lexicon
An executing program. A process consists of the program code (which may be shared with other processes which are executing the same program), and some private data. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
process (process ID, PID)
All software runs within an operating system concept known as a process. Each program running on a system is assigned its own process ID (PID). Users can easily obtain a process list (using Task Manager on Windows or ps on UNIX) in order to see what is running. Key point: Trojans, rootkits, and other evil software will attempt to hide themselves from the process list, either by providing replacements to the programs that list processes (like ps), or by hooking the system calls that enumerate processes. From Hacking-Lexicon
process identifier
An integer used by the Linux kernel to uniquely identify a process. PIDs are returned by the fork system call and can be passed to wait() or kill() to perform actions on the given process. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
Shown in the heading of the ps command as PID. The unique number assigned to every process running in the system.
process state
the stage of execution that a process is in. It is these states which determine which processes are eligible to receive CPU time. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
procmail
The procmail program is used by Red Hat Linux for all local maildelivery. In addition to just delivering mail, procmail can be used for automatic filtering, presorting, and other mail handling jobs. Procmail is also the basis for the SmartList mailing list processor. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
Versatile e-mail processor. Can be used to create mail-servers, mailing lists, sort your incoming mail into separate folders/files (real convenient when subscribing to one or more mailing lists or for prioritising your mail), preprocess your mail, start any programs upon mail arrival (e.g. to generate different chimes on your workstation for different types of mail) or selectively forward certain incoming mail automatically to someone. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
autonomous mail processor From whatis
procmail-lib
A library of useful procmail recipes. Includes recipes for auto-acknowledgement of incoming mail, recipes which recognize commands in the Subject: header and perform them, recipes to extract addresses, and a 'lint' script for procmail scripts. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
procmeter
X based system status monitor, older version This is the older version of procmeter. You probably want to install the procmeter3 package instead of this one, unless you need features only present in this older version - namely, the ability to log to a file or syslog, and the ability to read data from named pipes. ProcMeter displays constantly updating graphs of system information. Many different graphs are supported, including: Total CPU usage, CPU used by user, niced, or system processes, CPU idle time, load average, number of context switches, number of processes. Amount of swapping, paging, swap in, page in, swap out, page out. Amount of disk accesses, reads, writes, or interrupts. MB of free, used, buffer, or cached memory. Amount of swap space used. Number of packets received or transmitted over local interfaces, ethernet, or slip/ppp. Number of collisions on ethernet, battery life stats. As if all that wasn't enough, procmeter also allows you to write programs that communicate with procmeter and add new graphs to the display. Procmeter can also log statistics to a file, and play it back later. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
procmeter3
X based system status monitor ProcMeter displays constantly updating graphs of system information. Many different graphs are supported, including: APM information. Mailbox monitoring. Date, time, uptime. Amount of free and used disk space. Size, number of lines, rate of growth of log files. Amount of used and free memory and swap. Traffic on network devices. Load average, number of processes running and starting. Low level system statistics like CPU usage, disk usage and swapping. Wireless network link quality. As if all that wasn't enough, procmeter is designed to be easily extendable via plugins. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
procps
The /proc file system utilities. These are utilities to browse the /proc filesystem, which is not a real file system but a way for the kernel to provide information about the status of entries in its process table. (e.g. running, stopped or "zombie") Both command line and full screen utilities are provided. Ncurses is needed for the full screen utilities. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
The procps package contains a set of system utilities that provide system information. Procps includes ps, free, skill, snice, tload,top, uptime, vmstat, w, and watch. The ps command displays a snapshot of running processes. The top command provides a repetitive update of the statuses of running processes. The free command displays the amounts of free and used memory on your system. The skill command sends a terminate command (or another specified signal) to a specifiedset of processes. The snice command is used to change the scheduling priority of specified processes. The tload command prints a graph of the current system load average to a specified tty. The uptime command displays the current time, how long the system has been running, how many users are logged on, and system load averages for the past one, five, and fifteen minutes. The w command displays a list of the users who are currently logged on and what they are running. The watch program watches a running program. The vmstat command displays virtual memory statistics about processes, memory, paging, block I/O, traps,and CPU activity. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
professional workstation
A high-performance personal computer optimized for professional applications in fields such as digital circuit design, architecture, and technical drawing. Professional workstations typically offer excellent screen resolution, fast and powerful microprocessors, and lots of memory. Examples include the workstations made by Sun Microsystems and NeXT, Inc. Professional workstations are more expensive than personal computers and typically use the UNIX-operating system. The boundary between high-end personal computers and professional workstations, however, is eroding as personal computers become more powerful. From QUECID
n. 1. A control file for a program, esp. a text file automatically read from each user's home directory and intended to be easily modified by the user in order to customize the program's behavior. Used to avoid hardcoded choices (see also dot file, rc file). 2. [techspeak] A report on the amounts of time spent in each routine of a program, used to find and tune away the hot spots in it. This sense is often verbed. Some profiling modes report units other than time (such as call counts) and/or report at granularities other than per-routine, but the idea is similar. 3.[techspeak] A subset of a standard used for a particular purpose. This sense confuses hackers who wander into the weird world of ISO standards no end! From Jargon Dictionary
Versatile, virtual-hosting FTP daemon A powerful replacement for wu-ftpd, this File Transfer Protocol daemon supports hidden directories, virtual hosts, and per-directory ".ftpaccess" files. It uses a single main configuration file, with a syntax similar to Apache. Because of the advanced design, anonymous-FTP directories can have an arbitrary internal structure (bin, lib, etc, and special files are not needed). Advanced features like multiple password files and upload/download ratios are also supported. This package contains only the basic functionality of proftpd and PAM authentication. If you need SQL, use proftpd-sql and if you need LDAP, use proftpd-ldap. More information can be found at http://www.proftpd.net/. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
proftpd-common
Versatile, virtual-hosting FTP daemon A powerful replacement for wu-ftpd, this File Transfer Protocol daemon supports hidden directories, virtual hosts, and per-directory ".ftpaccess" files. It uses a single main configuration file, with a syntax similar to Apache. Because of the advanced design, anonymous-FTP directories can have an arbitrary internal structure (bin, lib, etc, and special files are not needed). Advanced features like multiple password files and upload/download ratios are also supported. This package provides the common administrative programs. More information can be found at http://www.proftpd.net/. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
proftpd-ldap
Versatile, virtual-hosting FTP daemon (with LDAP support) A powerful replacement for wu-ftpd, this File Transfer Protocol daemon supports hidden directories, virtual hosts, and per-directory ".ftpaccess" files. It uses a single main configuration file, with a syntax similar to Apache. Because of the advanced design, anonymous-FTP directories can have an arbitrary internal structure (bin, lib, etc, and special files are not needed). Advanced features like multiple password files and upload/download ratios are also supported. This package contains the proftpd daemon compiled with support for LDAP user authentication. It also supports PAM authentication. More information can be found at http://www.proftpd.net/. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
proftpd-mysql
Versatile, virtual-hosting FTP daemon (with SQL support) A powerful replacement for wu-ftpd, this File Transfer Protocol daemon supports hidden directories, virtual hosts, and per-directory ".ftpaccess" files. It uses a single main configuration file, with a syntax similar to Apache. Because of the advanced design, anonymous-FTP directories can have an arbitrary internal structure (bin, lib, etc, and special files are not needed). Advanced features like multiple password files and upload/download ratios are also supported. This package contains the proftpd daemon compiled with support for MySQL user authentication. It also supports PAM authentication. More information can be found at http://www.proftpd.net/. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
proftpd-pgsql
Versatile, virtual-hosting FTP daemon (with SQL support) A powerful replacement for wu-ftpd, this File Transfer Protocol daemon supports hidden directories, virtual hosts, and per-directory ".ftpaccess" files. It uses a single main configuration file, with a syntax similar to Apache. Because of the advanced design, anonymous-FTP directories can have an arbitrary internal structure (bin, lib, etc, and special files are not needed). Advanced features like multiple password files and upload/download ratios are also supported. This package contains the proftpd daemon compiled with support for PostgreSQL user authentication. It also supports PAM authentication. More information can be found at http://www.proftpd.net/. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
n. 1. A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's input into error messages. 2. An exercise in experimental epistemology. 3. A form of art, ostensibly intended for the instruction of computers, which is nevertheless almost inevitably a failure if other programmers can't understand it. From Jargon Dictionary
Cartographic projection filter and library Proj and invproj perform respective forward and inverse transformation of cartographic data to or from Cartesian data with a wide range of selectable projection functions (over 100 projections). Geod and invgeod perform geodesic (Great Circle) computations for determining latitude, longitude and back azimuth of a terminus point given a initial point latitude, longitude, azimuth and distance (direct) or the forward and back azimuths and distance between an initial and terminus point latitudes and longitudes (inverse). See the package proj-ps-doc for documentation in PostScript format. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
SWI-Prolog 5.0.0 From whatis
prom-mew
procmail reader for Mew This Emacs lisp acts as a bridge between Mew the mailer and e-mail processors like procmail. It analyzes the log generated by procmail, then tells you which letters are unread and where they are. The usage is somewhat similar to that of GNUS/Gnus. Note: the upstream author has lost interest in the development of this utility, so do not expect further improvement. Bug reports are still welcome. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Highly modularized GTK+ mail client written in Perl Features include full mbox support, qmaildir support, multiple POP3 account support, filters, MIME support, smart addressbook, and more. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
propaganda-debian
A Propaganda background image volume for Debian. This package contains images intended to be used as desktop backgrounds. This particular propaganda volume was especially put together for Debian and includes images from previous volumes as well as some tiles especially put together for debian. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
adj. 1. In marketroid-speak, superior; implies a product imbued with exclusive magic by the unmatched brilliance of the company's own hardware or software designers. 2. In the language of hackers and users, inferior; implies a product not conforming to open-systems standards, and thus one that puts the customer at the mercy of a vendor able to gouge freely on service and upgrade charges after the initial sale has locked the customer in. Often in the phrase "proprietary crap". 3. Synonym for closed-source, e.g. software issued in binary without source and under a restrictive license. Since the coining of the term open source, many hackers have made a conscious effort to distinguish between `proprietary' and `commercial' software. It is possible for software to be commercial (that is, intended to make a profit for the producers) without being proprietary. The reverse is also possible, for example in binary-only freeware. From Jargon Dictionary
propsel
Propagate X selections between displays propsel is useful to people who work with more than a single X11 display on their desk. It allows one to paste into a xterm on one display the contents of the selection of another display. For example, it's useful for situations where you have a URL on one display, and want to access it with a browser running on another display. You can select the URL, click "propagate", move over to the other display, and then paste into the browser. If you have the two displays on the same desk, you might be more interested in the package x2x. However, x2x can only link two displays at once, whereas propsel can propagate selections between up to 8 displays. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
LaTeX class for writing transparencies Prosper is a LaTeX class for writing transparencies. It is written on top of the seminar class by Timothy Van Zandt. It aims at offering an environment for easily creating slides for both presentations with an overhead projector and a video projector. Slides prepared for a presentation with a computer and a video projector may integrate animation effects, incremental display, and such. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
The rules that govern how things communicate over the network. Key point: By manipulating the protocol raw themselves, hackers can do powerful things that are impossible in an application. For example, client applications typically limit the length of a username that can be typed in. By manipulating the protocol raw, hackers can supply any sized username they want, sometimes causing a buffer overflow exploit. Key point: Protocols are either text-based or binary. Text-based protocols can be read directly off the wire and manipulated directly. Binary protocols require a protocol analyzer to decode them, and must be manipulated programmatically. See also: See the section on "banners" for examples of what some protocols look like on the wire. From Hacking-Lexicon
a set of rules that defines exactly how information is to be exchanged between two systems. This allows different types of machine to communicate in a form both understand. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
n. As used by hackers, this never refers to niceties about the proper form for addressing letters to the Papal Nuncio or the order in which one should use the forks in a Russian-style place setting; hackers don't care about such things. It is used instead to describe any set of rules that allow different machines or pieces of software to coordinate with each other without ambiguity. So, for example, it does include niceties about the proper form for addressing packets on a network or the order in which one should use the forks in the Dining Philosophers Problem. It implies that there is some common message format and an accepted set of primitives or commands that all parties involved understand, and that transactions among them follow predictable logical sequences. See also handshaking, do protocol. From Jargon Dictionary
protocol stack
In networking, protocols are layered on top of each other, with each layer responsible for a different aspect of communication. For TCP/IP, the protocol stack looks something like: HTTP Telnet POP3 SNMP bootp TCP UDP ICMP IP ARP PPP Ethernet The way that you would use this diagram is the following paragraph: You use the protocol HTTP to request a web-page. The HTTP client (web-browser) contacts the HTTP server (web-site) using the protocol TCP. The protocol TCP segments all its work into IP packets. Routers on the Internet know how to forward the IP packets, but are clueless as to whatever is inside the IP packets. Your machine will use something like PPP or Ethernet in order to send IP packets to the nearest router. Key point: Encryption can happen at any layer. Payload The data itself can be encrypted independent of the protocols used to transport it. For example, a typical use of PGP is to encrypt a message before sending via e-mail. All the e-mail programs and protocols are totally unaware that this has occurred. Application Layer Some applications have the ability to encrypt data automatically. For example, SMB can encrypt data as it goes across the wire Transport Layer SSL is essentially encryption at the transport layer. Network Layer IPsec provides encryption at the network layer, encrypting all the contents above IP, including the TCP and UDP headers themselves. From Hacking-Lexicon
protoize
Create/remove ANSI prototypes from C code "protoize" can be used to add prototypes to a program, thus converting the program to ANSI C in one respect. The companion program "unprotoize" does the reverse: it removes argument types from any prototypes that are found. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
protoize-2.95
Create/remove ANSI prototypes from C code NOTE: This is not a final release, but taken from the CVS gcc-2_95-branch (dated 2001-10-02). 'protoize' can be used to add prototypes to a program, thus converting the program to ANSI C in one respect. The companion program 'unprotoize' does the reverse: it removes argument types from any prototypes that are found. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
In communications, a proxy is something that acts as a server, but when given requests from clients, acts itself as a client to the real servers. Analogy: Consider talking to somebody who speaks a foreign language through a translator. You talk to the translator, who receives your statements, then regenerates something else completely to the other end. The translator serves as your proxy. Key point: The communication terminates at the proxy. In other words, the proxy doesn't forward data so much as it tears it completely apart. For example, an HTTP proxy doesn't forward every request sent through it. Instead, it first examines if it already has the requested web page in its cache. If so, then it returns that page without sending another request to the destination server. Because proxies completely terminate the communication channel, they are considered a more secure firewall technology than packet filters, because they dramatically increase the isolation between the networks. Key point: You will occasionally be scanned for proxies. ISPs scan their users for proxies. Hackers scan the Internet looking for proxies they can anonymize their connections with. Certain servers (like IRC servers) scan clients for proxies in order to prevent anonymous connections. Several websites maintain lists of such proxies. e.g. http://proxys4all.cgi.net/ From Hacking-Lexicon
proxymngr
X proxy services manager proxymngr is responsible for resolving requests from xfindproxy (in the xbase-clients package) and other similar clients, starting new proxies when appropriate, and keeping track of all the available proxy services. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
proxy manager service From whatis
prozgui
A FLTK-based GUI front end for prozilla prozgui is a graphical front end based on the Fast and Light Toolkit for prozilla. Prozilla is a download acellerator that opens multiple connections to get the file faster. Prozilla's features include proxy, redirection and ftpsearch support (the last one is still not supported by prozgui). From Debian 3.0r0 APT
prozilla
Multi-threaded download accelerator Prozilla uses multiple connections to download the file faster. It breaks the files in pieces and downloads all them at once increasing the download speed. Its progress is displayed in an ncurses based UI. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
displays information about your processes/jobs/programs which are running on the server. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
report process status From whatis
ps2ascii
Ghostscript translator from PostScript or PDF to ASCII From whatis
ps2epsi
generate conforming Encapsulated PostScript From whatis
ps2frag
obsolete shell script for the PSfrag system. From whatis
ps2pdf
Convert PostScript to PDF using ghostscript From whatis
ps2pdf12
Convert PostScript to PDF 1.2 (Acrobat 3-and-later compatible) using ghostscript From whatis
ps2pdfwr
Convert PostScript to PDF without specifying CompatibilityLevel, using ghostscript From whatis
ps2pk
creates a TeX pkfont from a type1 PostScript font From whatis
ps2ps
Ghostscript PostScript "distiller" From whatis
psfaddtable
add a Unicode character table to a console font From whatis
psfgettable
extract the embedded Unicode character table from a console font From whatis
psfontmgr
PostScript font manager -- part of Defoma, Debian Font Manager. psfontmgr is part of Defoma distribution, and manages PostScript fonts through Defoma framework. It registers the name of available PostScript fonts to Defoma in postscript category, so applications which output a postscript file have all the available PostScript fonts in their font-choosing menus. It also provides a tool named defoma-psfont-installer, which registers PostScript fonts installed in a PostScript printer. This tool benefits those who want to print a PostScript file with the printer fonts and have the printer fonts appear in the font-choosing menu. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
psfstriptable
remove the embedded Unicode character table from a console font From whatis
psgml
An Emacs major mode for editing SGML documents. PSGML is a major mode for editing SGML documents. It contains a simple SGML parser and can work with any DTD. (The most popular nowadays are the HTML DTDs. This package turns your emacs into the one of most powerful HTML editors and will be ultimately flexible as well, since you could upgrade your editor by just installing new DTDs). Functions provided includes menus and commands for inserting tags with only the contextually valid tags, identification of structural errors, editing of attribute values in a separate window with information about types and defaults, and structure based editing. Since psgml parses the DTD to allow you to edit SGML documents, you do need to have the DTDs installed in order to use psgml. Since psgml installs itself as an HTML mode in Emacs, it depends on sgml-data. Some other packages which also provide SGML DTDs are suggested, like debiandoc-sgml and linuxdoc-sgml. SGML, a language for encoding the structure of a document, is an ISO standard: ISO 8879:1986 "Information processing - Text and office systems - Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML)". Psgml is a standard package for XEmacs, and thus this package does not install itself for XEmacsen. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Emacs is an advanced and extensible editor. An Emacs major mode customizes Emacs for editing particular types of text documents. PSGML is a major mode for SGML (a markup language) documents. PSGML provides several functionalities for editing SGML documents: indentation according to element nesting depth and identification of structural errors (but it is not a validating SGML parser); menus and commands for inserting tags with only the contextually valid tags; editing attribute values in a separate window with information about types and defaults; structure based editing, including movement and killing; and also several commands for folding editing. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
interactive shell with the power of perl The Perl Shell is a shell that combines the interactive nature of a Unix shell with the power of Perl. The goal is to eventually have a full featured shell that behaves as expected for normal shell activity. But, the Perl Shell will use Perl syntax and functionality for control- flow statements and other things. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
jabber client using qt psi is a jabber client looking (by design) like licq. While this is a work in progress and by far not complete, it is already working nicely. For more information on jabber, see www.jabber.org (or the jabber package which contains the jabber server software). From Debian 3.0r0 APT
psk31lx
Soundcard-based ncurses program for operating PSK31 Psk31lx uses a soundcard to receive and transmit PSK31, an extremely narrow band HF-mode. PSK31 is a mode for keyboard QSO's. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pslatex
utility to typeset LaTeX files using PostScript fonts From whatis
psmisc
The psmisc package contains utilities for managing processes on your system: pstree, killall and fuser. The pstree command displays a tree structure of all of the running processes on your system. The killall command sends a specified signal (SIGTERM if nothing is specified) to processes identified by name. The fuser command identifies the PIDs of processes that are using specified files or filesystems. From Mandrake 9.0 RPM
Utilities that use the proc filesystem This package contains three little utilities that use the proc FS: `fuser' identifies processes using files (similar to Sun's or SGI's fuser). `killall' kills processes by name, e.g. killall -HUP named. `pstree' shows the currently running processes as a tree From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Perl Server Pages - Web scripting environment runtime Perl Server Pages provides a versatile dynamic web scripting environment for Perl, featuring advanced input validation and data flow management. Support for mod_perl provided. Psp attempts to provide easy construction of large websites in Perl, much the same way that ASP and JSP provide this support for other languages. This package provides the runtime necessary to run website fragments (piles) that have already been parsed. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
psp-parser
Perl Server Pages - Web scripting environment authoring tools Perl Server Pages provides a versatile dynamic web scripting environment for Perl, featuring advanced input validation and data flow management. Support for mod_perl provided. Psp attempts to provide easy construction of large websites in Perl, much the same way that ASP and JSP provide this support for other languages. This package provides piler, the tool to convert a set of PSP pages into a website fragment. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
psp-samples
Perl Server Pages - compiled samples Perl Server Pages provides a versatile dynamic web scripting environment for Perl, featuring advanced input validation and data flow management. Support for mod_perl provided. Psp attempts to provide easy construction of large websites in Perl, much the same way that ASP and JSP provide this support for other languages. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
psp-samples-src
Perl Server Pages - Sample source code Perl Server Pages provides a versatile dynamic web scripting environment for Perl, featuring advanced input validation and data flow management. Support for mod_perl provided. Psp attempts to provide easy construction of large websites in Perl, much the same way that ASP and JSP provide this support for other languages. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
The Pspell library provides a generic interface to any spell checker libraries installed on the system. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
pspell-config
Get information about a libpspell installation From whatis
pspp
Statistical analysis tool PSPP is a replacement for SPSS, a powerful program for statistical analysis of sampled data. This is a test release of PSPP. Please use caution in interpreting results. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
psptools
Tools for PostScript printers and devices The psptools suite comprise tools for manipulating PostScript (PS) files before sending them to a PostScript device. The available tools do use PostScript Printer Description (PPD) files to handle the features that are available on a given device (for example selecting a color model or the way two-sided pages are bound). The actual tools are psplpr, a printing/filtering tool that manipulates a PostScript document to control which features of a PS device will be used to print the document, and npslpr, a small command-line compatible replacement for pslpr which uses psplpr. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pstngw
H.323 to PSTN gateway Very simple PSTN (normal telephone) to H.323 gateway program using the OpenH323 library. It allows H.323 clients to make outgoing calls, and incoming calls to be routed to a specific H.323 client. It needs special hardware to do this. For more information on the OpenH323 project visit them at http://www.openh323.org/ From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pstoedit
PostScript and PDF files to editable vector graphics converter. pstoedit converts Postscript and PDF files to various editable vector graphic formats including tgif, xfig, PDF graphics, gnuplot format, idraw, MetaPost, GNU Metafile, PIC, Kontour and flattened PostScript. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pstotext
Extract text from PostScript and PDF files. pstotext extracts text (in the ISO 8859-1 character set) from a PostScript or PDF (Portable Document Format) file. Thus, pstotext is similar to the ps2ascii program that comes with ghostscript. The output of pstotext is however better than that of ps2ascii, because pstotext deals better with punctuation and ligatures. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pstree
display a tree of processes From whatis
pstruct
Dump C structures as generated from *(C`cc -g -S*(C' stabs From whatis
psutils
A collection of PostScript document handling utilities This collection of utilities is for manipulating PostScript documents. Page selection and rearrangement are supported, including arrangement into signatures for booklet printing, and page merging for n-up printing. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
psutils contains some utilities for manipulating PostScript documents. Page selections and rearrangement are supported, including arrengement into signatures for booklet printing, and page merging for n-up printing. From Mandrake 9.0 RPM
pswrap
creates C procedures from segments of PostScript language code From whatis
ptex-base
basic ASCII pTeX library files ASCII pTeX is a Japanized TeX distribution. Together with ptex-bin you have a complete installation. Includes: platex From Debian 3.0r0 APT
ptex-bin
ASCII pTeX binary files This is ASCII pTeX, a Japanized TeX distribution. These are all the binaries for the pTeX system. You need at least ptex-base together with it. Includes: platex From Debian 3.0r0 APT
ptex-buildsupport
Support files for building ASCII pTeX This package actually contains a fragment of the latest teTeX source tarball(will be placed in /usr/src). Since ASCII pTeX is provided as a set of additional source files to teTeX source tree, you need to install this package when you build ptex-bin package. A little shell script to strip down big teTeX source tarball is also included. You don't need to install this package to have a running pTeX system. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
ptex-jisfonts
Provide an environment of jis.tfm and jisg.tfm for pTeX/dvips This includes TFM files and VF files for jis.tfm and jisg.tfm which might produce better output than ordinary/traditional min*.tfm and goth*.tfm would do. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
ptknettools
A selection of Internet service clients written in Perl/Tk This package contains a selection of TCP/IP Internet service clients written in Perl/Tk (for use under X). It including clients for Finger, Whois, Time, QOTD and NSLookup. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
produce a permuted index of file contents From whatis
public-key (private-key, asymmetric cryptography)
Public-key cryptography uses two mathematically related keys, where a message encrypted by one key can only be decrypted by the other key. This is in stark contrast to traditional cryptography (now known as symmetric cryptography) where the same key was used for both encryption and decryption. The reason this is so important is because one of the two keys can be made public, hence the name "public-key cryptography". When this technique was discovered, it solved the biggest problem in cryptography at that time. In traditional symmetric cryptography, both the sender and receiver of a message had to agree upon the same key. Imagine your country has spies out in the field. If a spy gets captured, then the adversary could steal that key and decrypt messages. With asymmetric keys, however, the enemy can only steal the key the spy is using to encrypt messages, but cannot use that key to decrypt anything. The enemy may be able to forge messages, but the system wouldn't otherwise be compromised. Furthermore, the key could be extremely public: you could simply broadcast your public-key on the open airwaves for your spies to use. This is indeed what happens with SSL, the protocol you use to connect to e-commerce sites and pay for stuff with credit-cards. The public-key of the server is given out to everybody who connects to the site. However, each user encrypts his data using the public-key, which means nobody else can decrypt it without the secret private-key known only to the owners of the website. Example: Some uses of public-key encryption are: e-mail encryption Allows anybody to send an encrypted message to you that only you can read. The two most popular ways of doing this are PGP and S/MIME. digital signatures You can encrypt something with your private-key that can be decrypted by everyone (using your public-key). Therefore, if you encrypt a message, it proves it came from you, because only you know the private-key. Thus, you can digitally "sign" documents. President Clinton signed the "Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act" into law using a digital signature in this manner (using a smart-card with the password "Buddy"). Point: The public and private keys are mathematically related. In order to create them, you start with some randomly generated prime numbers. You then run these through some mathematical operations in order to generate the two keys. You publish one of the keys (making it "public") and you keep the other one private. Since the keys are rather large (hundreds of bytes), you generally store them in an encrypted file. Whenever you need to decrypt a message, you type in a password to decrypt the private-key, then use the private-key to decrypt the message. Key point: Protecting the "private key" from theft/disclosure is the most important thing any company can do. There is exist private keys whose value lie in the range of hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars (such as the key Verisign uses to sign certificates). The private key is usually protected with strong encryption based upon a strong password. In paranoid cases, parts of the password are given to different people, so that more than one person must be present in order to recover the private key for use (note: redundancy is also used, if the key is XYZ, then Alice knows XY, Bob knows YZ, and Charlene knows XZ, meaning that any two can unlock the private key). The paranoid things you see in movies about high-security installations apply: background checks on employees with access to the private key physical security consisting of photo IDs, searches, and strict entry/exit controls the two-person rule biometrics (retina/palm/finger/handwriting) additions to normal authentication physical keys Private-keys are frequently stored on separate objects. The most common is the floppy disk, which can be inserted into a server when booted, but removed to a safety deposit box. Other examples include crypto-cards. (Note: when you get a certificates from a CA, they usually require that the private-key never be stored on a computer). Servers that must use private keys must employ heavy countermeasures: intrusion detection systems firewalls (both packet filtering as well as more complex ones) frequent vulnerability assessments and auditing limited people who have access to the server full use of the security features of the server (i.e. turn on logging, enforce strong passwords, etc.) Example: Some public-key algorithms are: Diffie-Hellman The original one, though only designed for key-exchange. RSA The most popular algorithm. ElGamal Extends Diffie-Hellman algorithms to support the same features as RSA, such as encryption and digital-signatures. DSA Government standard for digital-signatures based upon ElGamal. Elliptic Curves Based upon a different mathematical problem from number theory and algebraic geometry. It results in smaller keys and faster operation, but is not as well analyzed as other systems. Other There are other systems based upon different hard-to-solve mathematical problems. Antonym: Sometimes the word "secret-key" is used as an antonym to "public-key" in order to highlight the fact that it is a shared-secret. Also, "symmetric" encryption is the antonym to "asymmetric". From Hacking-Lexicon
public-key encryption
An encryption scheme, introduced by Diffie and Hellman in 1976, where each person gets a pair of keys, called the public key and the private key. Each person's public key is published while the private key is kept secret. Messages are encrypted using the intended recipient's public key and can only be decrypted using his private key. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux
Parallel URL fetcher puf is a download tool for UNIX-like systems. You may use it to download single files or to mirror entire servers. It is similar to GNU wget (and has a partly compatible command line), but has the ability to do many downloads in parallel. This is very interesting, if you have a high-bandwidth internet connection. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Simple DHCP/BOOTP client. This is the DHCP/BOOTP client written by RedHat. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Printer Utility Program This is a GUI utility for maintaining your printer under Linux. For uni-directional mode it supports the Lexmark Optra Color 40 and 45, Lexmark Optra E310, HP 2100M, HP 4000, and HP LJ4 Plus. For bi-directional mode it supports any PJL printer (or partially, depending on the printer). From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Automated purity testing software. For many years now, the purity test, (in various forms) has been widely available on the net. This package provides an automated way of taking the test. Purity tests are an amusing way to see how much of a nerd or a hacker you are. More tests are available in the purity-off package. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
purity-off
Sex related purity tests This package installs the sex related purity tests not included in the purity package. If you are offended by sex or by unusual sexual activities please do not install this package. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Parallel Virtual Machine - binaries and shared libraries Console and communication daemon binaries for the Parallel Virtual Machine. Should be sufficient to utilize a node in a dynamically linked PVM program such as pvmpov. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pwck
verify integrity of password files From whatis
pwconv
convert to and from shadow passwords and groups. From whatis
print name of current/working directory From whatis
pwdb-conf
Configuration package for the libpwdb, the password database library. From Mandrake 9.0 RPM
pwgen
Automatic Password generation pwgen generates random, meaningless but pronounceable passwords. These passwords contain either only lowercase letters, or upper and lower case mixed, or digits thrown in. Uppercase letters and digits are placed in a way that eases remembering their position when memorizing only the word. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Lightweight window manager with frames PWM is a rather lightweight window manager for X11. It has the unique feature that multiple client windows can be attached to the same frame. This feature helps keeping windows, especially the numerous xterms, organized. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pwunconv
The pxe package contains the PXE (Preboot eXecution Environment) server and code needed for Linux to boot from a boot disk image on aLinux PXE server. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
pxfonts
Palatino-likes fonts for TeX The PX fonts consist of: 1. virtual text roman fonts using Adobe Palatino (or URWPalladioL) with some modified and additional text symbols in the OT1, T1, and TS1 encoding 2. virtual text sans serif fonts using Adobe Helvetica (or URW NimbusSanL) with additional text symbols in OT1, T1, TS1, and LY1 encodings (Provided in the TX fonts distribution) 3. monospaced typewriter fonts in OT1, T1, TS1, and LY1 encodings (Provided in the TX fonts distribution) 4. math alphabets using Adobe Palatino (or URWPalladioL) with modified metrics 5. math fonts of all symbols corresponding to those of Computer Modern math fonts (CMSY, CMMI, CMEX, and Greek letters of CMR) 6. math fonts of all symbols corresponding to those of AMS fonts (MSAM and MSBM) 7. additional math fonts of various symbols From Debian 3.0r0 APT
High-level wrapper around a subset of the OpenSSL library, includes* SSL. Connection objects, wrapping the methods of Python's portable sockets* Callbacks written in Python* Extensive error-handling mechanism, mirroring OpenSSL's error codes... and much more ;) From Redhat 8.0 RPM
pybliographer
A tool for manipulating bibliographic databases. It currently supports BibTeX, Medline, Ovid and Refer files. It is useful for viewing, editing and searching, but also to convert bibliographic databases into HTML pages for example. Home Page: http://canvas.gnome.org:65348/pybliographer/ From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pychecker
Finds common bugs in python source code PyChecker is a tool for finding common bugs in python source code. It finds problems that are typically caught by a compiler for less dynamic languages, like C and C++. Because of the dynamic nature of python, some warnings may be incorrect; however, spurious warnings should be fairly infrequent. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pyching
A Python program to cast and interpret I Ching hexagrams pyChing is a program that allows you to 'consult' the I Ching. The I Ching is an ancient Chinese book of wisdom, which, apart from being read as a book, has also traditionally been consulted as an oracle. pyChing allows you to perform an I Ching 'reading' using the coin oracle, and then look up a brief interpretation from the I Ching. pyChing is completely written in Python, a cross platform, object oriented, programming language, using the Tkinter interface to the Tk GUI toolkit. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pycmail
mail sorter written in python mail sorter similar to procmail, written in python, using python syntax for mail delivery From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pydb
An enhanced Python command-line debugger Pydb is a command-line debugger for Python. It is based on the standard Python debugger pdb, but has a number of added features. Particularly, it is suitable for use with DDD, a graphical debugger front end. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pydf
colourised df(1)-clone pydf is all-singing, all-dancing, fully colourised df(1)-clone written in python. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
an English/Chinese Dictionary written with python/gtk This is an English/Chinese Dictionary written by Daniel Gau with python/gtk. The word base was originally from xdict, and was converted and modified by Daniel Gau and bv1al. This program can be run in both console mode and X Window GUI mode. Author: Daniel Gau <[email protected]> Maintainer: Shang-Feng Yang <[email protected]> Home Page: http://www.linux.org.tw/~plateau/linux_notes/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/pydict/ From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pyftpd
ftp daemon with advanced features multithreaded ftp daemon written in python, featuring advanced permission scheme, upload/download speed throttling, GUI configuration, internal database of users and more. Does not need to run as root. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Python Mail <-> News Gateway Python Gateway Script from news to mail and vice versa. It is intended to be a full SMTP/NNTP rfc compliant gateway with whitelist manager. You will probably have to install a mail-transport-agent and/or news-transport-system package to manage SMTP/NNTP traffic. MTA is needed for mail2news service, since mail have to be processed on a box where pyg is installed. You can use a remote smtpserver for news2mail. News system is useful but not needed, since you can send articles to a remote SMTP server (ie: moderated NG) where is installed pyg, otherwise you will need it. It refers to rfc 822 (mail) and 850 (news). From Debian 3.0r0 APT
SDL bindings for games development in Python A multimedia development kit for Python. Pygame provides modules for you to access the video display, play sounds, track time, read the mouse and joystick, control the CD player, render true type fonts and more. It does this using mainly the cross-platform SDL library, a lightweight wrapper to OS-specific APIs. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pygtk2
PyGTK is an extension module for python that gives you access to the GTK+widget set. Just about anything you can write in C with GTK+ you can write in python with PyGTK (within reason), but with all the benefits of python. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
pygtk2-libglade
This module contains a wrapper for the libglade library. Libglade allows a program to construct its user interface from an XML description, which allows the programmer to keep the UI and program logic separate. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
pyne
A Python-GTK powered GUI mail-/newsreader Pyne is a graphical (GTK+) offline news- and mailreader written in Python. Multiple POP3, SMTP, IMAP and NNTP boxes are supported. Features include threading of newsgroups, optional expiry of news and mail, filters, attachment support, etc. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pyrite-publisher
Convert html and text documents to palm DOC format Pyrite Publisher can convert a variety of input formats into several different variations on the palm doc format. This package requires python 2.1. This new version includes experimental support for a gui interface; see /usr/share/doc/pyrite-publisher/README.GUI for details. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pysol
X11 solitaire game written in Python PySol is an X11 solitaire game with a number of nice features, including hints, autoplay, unlimited undo, player statistics, demo mode, selectable card set and background graphics, and integrated help. It currently plays over one hundred different games and variants, and has a plug-in architecture which makes adding more easy. Install python-cardsets for a wide variety of cardsets. Install pysol-sound-server and pysol-sounds to get support for sound effects and background music. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pysol-cardsets
Additional card graphics for Pysol This package contains several additional sets of card graphics for the X11 solitaire game PySol. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pysol-sound-server
Sound server for PySol When installed along with the pysol-sounds package, allows PySol to play sounds and background music. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pysol-sounds
Sounds and background music for use with PySol When this package is installed along with pysol-sound-server, PySol can play sounds and background music. It is mostly useless without the server. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
An interactive object-oriented scripting language (default version) Python, the interpretive, interactive object oriented language, includes an extensive class library with lots of goodies for network programming, system administration, sounds and graphics. This package is a dependency package, which depends on Debian's default Python version (currently v2.1). From Debian 3.0r0 APT
Python is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language often compared to Tcl, Perl, Scheme or Java. Python includes modules, classes, exceptions, very high level dynamic data types and dynamic typing. Python supports interfaces to many system calls and libraries, as well as to various windowing systems (X11, Motif, Tk, Mac and MFC). Programmers can write new built-in modules for Python in C or C++. Python can be used as an extension language for applications that need a programmable interface. This package contains most of thestandard Python modules, as well as modules for interfacing to the Tix widget set for Tk and RPM. From Mandrake 9.0 RPM
pytris
two-player networked console tetris clone two-player networked console based tetris clone, written in python, similar to xtet42. From Debian 3.0r0 APT
pyxf86config
Python wrappers for the XFree86 library libxf86config. It is used to read and write XFree86 configuration files. From Redhat 8.0 RPM
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