I don't really differentiate between the kernal and what it takes to talk to the kernal. Pretty much, to me, the UI is the OS. And if it's an obnoxious UI it's an obnoxious OS.
Which is why I'm building a golden idol to Bill Gates, our Savior from the evil comic book guys and unix in all of its evil forms.
Today I had to figure out how to make a bigger file and I learned that I need to know what a "stanza" is for chsec. Of course, the comic book guy who wrote the man file doesn't say. And nowhere in my googling did I find out what a stanza is, except for what I already know, a section of poetry.
The only poetry in linux is when it finally gets all the launch codes and destroys itself by destroying all of us. Even that's not poetic but there'll be no obnoxious comic book guys around afterward to argue the point.
DEATH TO UNIX! LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH.
Dude, that's heavy-duty. LOL
As for the usual meaning of "stanza" in the context of computing: it will be a set of related parameters grouped under a header in a configuration file. Windows has them -- .ini files are arranged this way. [header] followed by relevant parms.
But if you're using chsec, you must be in AIX. AAAAAUGH!
Ok, what they're talking about: in AIX, those security files are arranged in stanzas. If you open one, say /etc/security/passwd, you'll see that it's a long succession of clots of parameters, each one grouped under a username. Those groups are the stanzas. The name of the relevant one is what the chsec command is looking for after the "-s".
I always thought the Motif version of smit was cute, with its "running man" progress indicator. If the command succeeded, the little man would stop running and signal "touchdown", but if it failed, he would fall on his face. You could even see the dust flying up where he hit.