Question

What is debian?

Answer 1

I know C, yet I do not know Unix/Linux :(

Answer 2

also, I don't know how to build from the command line, or how to use emacs, or what make/makefile is. Also, I think cat is a feline mammal.

Answer 3

In addition, I think ssh is a misspelling of 'shh!'

Answer 4

Debian is an operating system that uses the Linux kernel. Note that Linux is a kernel only. The different "Linux" systems are different OSes that use the Linux kernel.

ssh ( SecureSHell ) is a command to login to a machine over the network securely.

cat ( ConcAtenaTe ), if given multiple files will concatenate them together and normally write them to stdout. With a single file, it will write it to stdout. Cool for short files, long ones just fly by. A paging command like more is usually more useful for reading long files.

GCC has SO many options, that typing them all the time ain't fun. Makefiles hold commands for building, installing, cleaning your build directory. make builds your programs with the options in the Makefile[s].

EMACS at it's basic level is a plain text editor. It can also be used as an IDE. The friend who introduced me to Unix loved EMACS. I got a job where the machines didn't have it, and I defected to using vi for editing.