| ABI | Application Binary Interface |
| ALFS | Automated Linux From Scratch |
| ALSA | Advanced Linux Sound Architecture |
| API | Application Programming Interface |
| ASCII | American Standard Code for Information Interchange |
| BIOS | Basic Input/Output System |
| BLFS | Beyond Linux From Scratch |
| BSD | Berkeley Software Distribution |
| chroot | change root |
| CMOS | Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor |
| COS | Class Of Service |
| CPU | Central Processing Unit |
| CRC | Cyclic Redundancy Check |
| CVS | Concurrent Versions System |
| DHCP | Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol |
| DNS | Domain Name Service |
| EGA | Enhanced Graphics Adapter |
| ELF | Executable and Linkable Format |
| EOF | End of File |
| EQN | equation |
| EVMS | Enterprise Volume Management System |
| ext2 | second extended file system |
| ext3 | third extended file system |
| FAQ | Frequently Asked Questions |
| FHS | Filesystem Hierarchy Standard |
| FIFO | First-In, First Out |
| FQDN | Fully Qualified Domain Name |
| FTP | File Transfer Protocol |
| GB | Gibabytes |
| GCC | GNU Compiler Collection |
| GID | Group Identifier |
| GMT | Greenwich Mean Time |
| GPG | GNU Privacy Guard |
| HTML | Hypertext Markup Language |
| IDE | Integrated Drive Electronics |
| IEEE | Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers |
| IO | Input/Output |
| IP | Internet Protocol |
| IPC | Inter-Process Communication |
| IRC | Internet Relay Chat |
| ISO | International Organization for Standardization |
| ISP | Internet Service Provider |
| KB | Kilobytes |
| LED | Light Emitting Diode |
| LFS | Linux From Scratch |
| LSB | Linux Standard Base |
| MB | Megabytes |
| MBR | Master Boot Record |
| MD5 | Message Digest 5 |
| NIC | Network Interface Card |
| NLS | Native Language Support |
| NNTP | Network News Transport Protocol |
| NPTL | Native POSIX Threading Library |
| OSS | Open Sound System |
| PCH | Pre-Compiled Headers |
| PCRE | Perl Compatible Regular Expression |
| PID | Process Identifier |
| PLFS | Pure Linux From Scratch |
| PTY | pseudo terminal |
| QA | Quality Assurance |
| QOS | Quality Of Service |
| RAM | Random Access Memory |
| RPC | Remote Procedure Call |
| RTC | Real Time Clock |
| SBU | Standard Build Unit |
| SCO | The Santa Cruz Operation |
| SGR | Select Graphic Rendition |
| SHA1 | Secure-Hash Algorithm 1 |
| SMP | Symmetric Multi-Processor |
| TLDP | The Linux Documentation Project |
| TFTP | Trivial File Transfer Protocol |
| TLS | Thread-Local Storage |
| UID | User Identifier |
| umask | user file-creation mask |
| USB | Universal Serial Bus |
| UTC | Coordinated Universal Time |
| UUID | Universally Unique Identifier |
| VC | Virtual Console |
| VGA | Video Graphics Array |
| VT | Virtual Terminal |
