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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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TIL Debian releases are named after Toy Story characters (wiki.debian.org)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The codenames for every major Debian release are named after characters from Pixar's Toy Story franchise. Debian's unstable release is fittingly named after Sid, an unstable character from the Toy Story movies.

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[–] [email protected] 108 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (45 children)

I love the Linux world's tradition of less serious names, in general.

I guess when the OS is free, you don't need to get the marketing people involved as much.
The kernel was almost named Freax. Then there's GNU, Slackware, KDE which was originally the Kool Desktop Environment, The GIMP (released 1 year after Pulp Fiction), ...
It's often due to the devs creating it as a hobby project and giving it a light-hearted name to show it's nothing professional or important - and then it becomes important later.

My favorite right now is RebeccaBlackOS, which is the only current distro built around Wayland's reference compositor Weston, showcasing all the capabilities Wayland has.
Unlike Hannah Montana Linux, it has no Rebecca Black theming at all. It's just called that because the dev is a fan of hers.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

It made me wince when Android did away with its dessert based codenames and now they're just 'Android 12' etc. It really went corporate after that direction.

And please tell me RebeccaBlackOS shows a cool popup or console message every Friday.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

They didn't:

Android 12: Snow Cone
Android 13: Tiramisu
Android 14: Upside Down Cake
Android 15: Vanilla Ice Cream

They stopped using the codenames in marketing, but they are still there.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Happy to be corrected. But I still wish they were used prominently as it used to be before.

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