Boot loader? Boot manager? GRUB? rEFIt? The terminology and names never cease! Fortunately, I will clearly explain boot loaders, boot managers, and more!

Boot loader? Boot manager? GRUB? rEFIt? The terminology and names never cease! Fortunately, I will clearly explain boot loaders, boot managers, and more!
Hostnames are important in computer networking. The hostname is a computer readable nickname for a computer. Linux uses the hostname anywhere it wants to display the computer’s name (such as a terminal prompt, login screen, and much more). Fortunately, understanding and setting the hostname is easy to do.
Setting up a new operating system is scary. What if something goes wrong? What if a bad selection is made? What if it doesn’t work? I’ve suffered those very fears. If only I had known about virtual machines…
Perhaps you are trying to install an operating system. Or, maybe you just want to setup a new hard drive. Either way, you need to know what partitions are, why you need them, and how to create them.
Computer processors have their own languages, called instruction sets, with funny names like “x86-64.” Knowing which is used by your CPU is important when downloading some Linux distributions.