We’ve all been there - you’re wandering around a party at some Linux event clutching your drink and looking for someone to talk to, but everyone is having some obscure technical conversation full of unfamiliar jargon. Then, as you slide past a cluster of important-looking people, you overhear the word “superblock” and think, “Superblock, that’s a file system thing… I read about file systems in operating systems class once.” Gratefully, you join the conversation, only to discover while you know some of the terms - cylinder group, indirect block, inode - you’re still unable to come up with stunning ripostes like, “Aha, but that’s really just another version of soft updates, and it doesn’t solve the nlinks problem.” (Admiring silence ensues.) Now what? You want to be able to make witty remarks about the pros and cons of journaling while throwing back the last of your martini, but you don’t know where to start.