== Important Concepts
If this is your first foray into building live distros, there are some terms and concepts we need to understand first. This will simplify the process later on.

=== Terms

An *operating system* is what your programs (email client, web browser, etc.) run on.

There are two basic types of booting systems that communicate between the *hardware* (the physical computer itself and its components) and the operating system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS[*BIOS*] (Basic Input/Output System) which has been around for quite some time and the newer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface[*UEFI*] (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface). Don't worry, you don't need to memorize what they're acronyms for and there won't be an exam- just remember that BIOS is an older technology and UEFI is the newer one- and that they operate differently.

*GNU/Linux*, sometimes just referred to as _Linux_ (And there is a difference between the terminologies, but it's nuanced. You are welcome to https://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.en.html[read up on it] though!), is an example of an operating system. Other examples include _Windows_, _macOS_ (previously _OS X_), _iOS_, _Android_, and a whole slew of others.

A *live distro*, *live CD*, *live DVD*, *live USB*, and the like are a way of booting an operating system without installing it on the hard drive- this means the computer doesn't even need a hard drive installed, or it doesn't matter if the operating system is broken. Typically they are Linux-based, but there are several Windows-based live releases out there (usually they're focused on rescuing broken Windows systems, so they're not very flexible).