Initial public offering (IPO)

An initial public offering (IPO), referred simply as an "offering" or "flotation", is when a company (called the issuer) issues common stock or shares to the public for the first time. They are often issued by smaller, younger companies seeking capital to expand, but can also be done by large privately-owned companies looking to become publicly traded.

In an IPO the issuer may obtain the assistance of an underwriting firm, which helps it determine what type of security to issue (common or preferred), best offering price and time to bring it to market.

An IPO can be a risky investment. For the individual investor it is tough to predict what the stock or shares will do on its initial day of trading and in the near future since there is often little historical data with which to analyze the company. Also, most IPOs are of companies going through a transitory growth period, and they are therefore subject to additional uncertainty regarding their future value.

little about /tmp directory

Each Unix system has a directory /tmp which acts as a "scratch area" which you can use to hold files and directories for short periods of time. For example:

   mkdir /tmp/for_u_tim
  cp -r surprise /tmp/for_u_tim

This creates the directory for_u_tim in the directory /tmp and then copies the directory surprise to it.

User tim might have been told that there is "something" for them in /tmp.

The access permissions and the group ownership must be set correctly before another user can copy the directory or link to it.

Remember to remove files and directories that you copy to or create in the directory /tmp; other people need that space too.

Do not use the /tmp directory to store vital information; it is cleared whenever the system is "booted up" and by the system administrator when the directory gets full.

Swap Memory for Solaris

Having an appropriate amount of swap space is important for optimal system performance. Simple commands allow monitoring swap space utilization.

To get a summary of total system swap space, use the swap command:

swap -s

total: 597744k bytes allocated + 99760k reserved = 697504k used, 095216k available

The output of the swap -s command shows the amount of swap space used (697504KB in this example) and available (95216KB), and further breaks down the used swap space into allocated and reserved. Allocated space represents swap space currently in use. Reserved space is in limbo, not available, not in use, but reserved for future use.

To get details on the individual devices or files that constitute the swap space, use:

swap -l

swapfile dev swaplo blocks free
/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s1 32,1 16 2624560 2624560
/dev/dsk/c0t8d0s1 32,57 16 2624560 2624560

The swapfile column is the device or filename of the swap component. The dev column shows the major and minor device numbers for devices or zeros for a file. Blocks is the total size of the swap component in 512 byte blocks (divide by two for KB) and free shows the number of 512 byte blocks unused.