Debian? Ubuntu? Sidux? Pardus? Mepis? Gentoo? Whoa! Why are these Linux distros so strangely named? Why not name a OS simply – door, room or window? Although, Linux distros have very strange names but it is interesting to know, why they are called so?
1. Debian
Debian was first announced on 16 August 1993, by Ian Murdock. He formed the name “Debian” as a combination of the first name of his girlfriend (later wife, now ex-wife) Debra and his own first name. A nice way to name something. Take note all new Linux ditro makers.
2. Slackware
Slackware is an operating system created by Patrick Volkerding of Slackware Linux, Inc. The name “Slackware” stems from the fact that the distribution started as a private side project with no intended commitment. To prevent it from being taken too seriously at first, Volkerding gave it a humorous name, which stuck even after Slackware became a serious project. The “Slack” in Slackware is a reference to the term “Slack” as used by the Church of the SubGenius. Probaly he could have named it DNDUX (Do Not Disturb).
3. MEPIS
MEPIS distributions are created by Warren Woodford. According to Warren Woodford, the name MEPIS is pronounced like “Memphis”, with the extra letters removed. Basically, it is pronounced “MEP-us” with a short “e” (“meppis”). Originally, the word “MEPIS” didn’t mean anything in particular; it came about by mistake. When Woodford misunderstood a friend over a bad Skype connection, he decided to use the name because it was a simple five-letter word and there were no other companies or products with that name.
4. Mandriva
MandrakeSoft was forced to change its name as a result of losing litigation to the Hearst Corporation over the name Mandrake. The litigation concluded in February 2004, and appeals expired in early 2005. The litigation arose because of Hearst Corporation’s claim to the name “Mandrake”, inspired by the comic Mandrake the Magician; forcing MandrakeSoft to change its name. In 2005, MandrakeSoft acquired the assets of Lycoris, and purchased Conectiva. As a result of the forced name change, the name Mandriva was selected to reflect the combination of MandrakeSoft and Conectiva.
5. Sidux (Edited : See Chris Hildebrandt’s comments below for detailed information)
The name of the distribution sidux is derived from Debian Sid (Sid Phillips character in Toy Story – usually destroys and tortures his sister Hannah’s toys.) and the common use of -ux for Unix derivatives.
So, any more interesting ones you know, please feel free to share with us. If you like the post, please Digg or Stumble it!
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From the OS platform statistics at w3schools, we can see that as of August, 2008 only 3.9 percent belongs to Linux. Whereas, Vista’s users are 12.5 percent. Vista manages to pull off 5.2 percent increase in last 8 months compared to Linux’s meager 0.3 percent. So, why is the penguin is crawling?
- People are afraid of the penguin. Many people think that Linux would not be able to satisfy all their computing needs. Or they simply do not want to get their hands dirty. Here are two great articles which helps to bust Linux myths (here and here).
- Major players in the business neglect Linux. Companies like Adobe, Google do not favor Linux as much as they favor Windows or Mac. Google runs its server on Linux, but when they release their first web-browser, guess WHAT? Its for Windows, Linux users will have to wait. Adobe products are not native to Linux (can run under wine though). Why can not they port it for Linux?
- Microsoft’s strategy of compensating OS with high end hardware seems to be working. So, what you can not run Vista on your current hardware? Go and get yourself a new advanced (highly priced) hardware. Hardware manufacturers are happy as long as they sell their products.
- There is plethora of Linux distributions alive. Everyone is making their own distribution. Instead of making their own distribution, they should work to improve few major distributions. How many times we have heard that although Ubuntu is Debian based distribution but it contributes very less to Debian.
- Companies selling computers these days mostly sell MS’s OS as the primary OS. New users have very less option to choose their OS. I bought my laptop with Vista because I had no options available for the configuration I wanted. Although I do not use it but the money went MS’s safe.
- People already using Linux are happy as their own community, not spreading Linux. A new Linux user asking a newbie question in the forums are often bullied by more experienced users. In most case they do not care to answer.
As a Linux lover, I would appeal to all Linux user to spread and encourage Linux. What are you thoughts? Drop a comment.
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Hello world!
This is Kumar Saurav, a 23 old guy from india. I am computer engineer by profession. I will be blogging about technology at yabBLOG. Being computer engineer by profession i come across various interesting articles, how-tos, news, etc about technology. I promise all you readers that i will not post anything which i do not put test into.
yabBLOG is “yet another blogger’s blog” but you get only the best here.
By this “Hello world!” post i declare yabBLOG open.
Image Credit : ~IgorLaptev