summary
A brief overview or condensed representation of information, often used in Linux tools to display key statistics or totals rather than detailed output.
In Linux contexts, a summary typically refers to output that aggregates or condenses data into essential statistics, counts, or totals. Many command-line tools provide summary modes or options to give you the big picture without overwhelming detail.
For example, the du command with the -s flag shows only a summary of total disk usage for a directory, rather than listing every subdirectory: du -sh /home displays one line with the total size.
Similarly, tools like ps, netstat, and free often include summary modes or flags that present aggregated information. The free -h command summarizes system memory usage in human-readable format rather than raw bytes.