ARM
ARM is a company that develops RISC processor chips for a variety of embedded systems. ARM develops 32-bit RISC processor chip designs such as the ARM7, ARM9 and ARM10E, of which the ARM7 and ARM9 processors are relevant to DSLinux, since the NintendoDS runs on those two processors.
bootloader
A bootloader is a small program that runs when a computer starts up, which loads the into memory from some other storage device.
brick
Bricking is a common term in homebrew or other embedded development. To brick something means: to make a device unusable, thus reducing the device to a costly, hightech brick.
For example, Darkfader once created a homebrew which updated your firmware to something unusable, bricking the DS. The DS is bricked by updating the firmware.
FlashMe protects against these bricks. It flashes the first part of the DS memory, which is protected and cannot be flashed unless SL1 (two physical contacts on the DS circuit board) are shorted. It contains rescue code to reflash the firmware when it has been replaced by faulty code (eg. by a brick or by a faulty firmware flash).
IRC
Internet relay chat. A place where people can chat with simple text-based intefaces from all over. #dslinux is on irc.blitzed.org IRC
kernel
The kernel is the core of an . It is a piece of software responsible for providing secure access to the machine's hardware and to various computer processes (a process is a computer program in a state of execution).
Linux
Linux is a computer . It is one of the most prominent examples of free software and of open-source development: unlike proprietary operating systems such as Windows and Mac OS, all of its underlying source code is available to the public and anyone can freely use, modify, improve, and redistribute it.
MMU
MMU is an acronym for Memory Mangement Unit. It is a hardware device needed to implement virtual memory without significant overhead.
operating system
In computing, an operating system (aka, OS) is the system software responsible for the direct control and management of hardware and basic system operations. Additionally, it provides a foundation upon which to run application software such as word processing programs, web browsers and others.
port
A program which has been modified to run on a different system than the one it was originally designed for. Also refers to the act of modifying a program to run on a different system.
QPC
Stands for Quick Power Cycle. This means powering up the DS as soon as it is powered off. You have to do this to save /sram on Supercard SD.
romfs
A read-only filesystem. In DSLinux, the root filesystem is a romfs filesystem, and includes /, /boot, /dev, /proc, /sbin, and /tmp. The etc, home, lib, usr, and var directories inside the 'linux' directory on CF/SD card are symlinked from romfs to yield the filesystem you'll see in a running copy of DSLinux.
SRAM
Acronym for .
static random access memory
Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) is a type of semiconductor memory.
The word "static" indicates that the memory retains its contents as long as power remains applied, unlike dynamic RAM (DRAM) that needs to be periodically refreshed. (Nevertheless, SRAM should not be confused with read-only memory and flash memory, since it is volatile memory and preserves data only while power is continuously applied.)
Random access means that locations in the memory can be written to or read from in any order, regardless of the memory location that was last accessed.
stub
A short wiki page in need of expansion.
wiki
A type of website that allows users to add and edit content and is especially suited for constructive collaborative authoring.
The term also sometimes refers to the collaborative software itself (wiki engine) that facilitates the operation of such a website.
XIP
XIP is an acronym for eXecute In Place. It is a technique to limit a program's memory usage.
The memory of a program is divided into segments, each of which has a specific purpose. Some of these segments are never written to. The text segment, for example, contains the program's executable code. This only needs to be read, not written. XIP reads the text segment directly from a permanent storage medium instead of loading it into RAM first. Only read-write segments such as the stack segment are loaded into RAM. Multiple copies of the same program running can share one copy of the text segment.
In some DSLinux builds, the kernel runs XIP. In most builds, user programs run XIP as well.