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this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2023
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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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I've always wondered why the admin group is called wheel
It's from the phrase "big wheel", meaning a person with a lot of power/influence. Similar to "big cheese"... It would have been better to use "cheese" instead of "wheel" IMO.
What if wheel referred to a wheel of cheese? Best of both worlds that way!
The first victim of the Cheese Wheel Wars: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/italy-cheesemaker-dies-crushed-falling-wheels-cheese-rcna98716
I always think of it as 'being behind the wheel', which gives control of whatever direction you want to steer into.
Pretty sure it's not. I saw something on this topic a few weeks ago but can't quite remember. Iirc, it was a term in an early early OS, where a bit in memory was the privilege but and could be set or unset by turning a real wheel on the computer. This Stück with some people developing UNIX, so they called the wheel group wheel, but none of them are sure who came up with this.
Of course, this is just hearsay.
Brodie Robertson made a video on that recently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vmp6Pg8rWc
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=5vmp6Pg8rWc
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.