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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 Charger8232@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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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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[-] superkret@feddit.org 102 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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.

[-] somenonewho@feddit.org 23 points 2 months ago

The kernel was almost named freax

Did you know that kernel releases have codenames?

My favourite being 4.0: "Hurr durr I'ma sheep" because I remember taking part in that poll.

[-] superkret@feddit.org 5 points 2 months ago

Thanks for that laugh!

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[-] curry@programming.dev 23 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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.

[-] dev_null@lemmy.ml 24 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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.

[-] curry@programming.dev 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.

[-] IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 16 points 2 months ago

GNU

Which stands for 'GNU is not Unix'. Also 'less' (which is more). Pine is(was) Program for Internet News and Email and the FOSS fork is 'Alpine' or 'Alternatively Licensed Program for Internet News and Email'. And there's a ton more of wordplays and other more or less fun stuff on how/why things are named like they are.

[-] prole 7 points 2 months ago

WINE Is Not an Emulator

[-] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago

Pine also competed with "elm". And it used the "pico" editor which was replaced by "nano"...

[-] IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 5 points 2 months ago

And pico is short from 'Pine Composer'. Nano was originally called 'tip' (This Is not Pico), but that name was already used by another program. And 'elm' besides being a tree is a short from 'Electronic Mail'.

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[-] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 months ago

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

I hate it. Which came out later, "stretch", "Woody", "Jessie"? It's so annoying to have to look that up.

[-] pmc 27 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Which came later, Windows XP, ME, or Vista? Sure, you probably have that memorized, but if you didn't it wouldn't be immediately obvious. That's just a problem with using codenames instead of numbers, nothing to do with unserious names. At least Debian releases have reasonable version numbers alongside the codenames, unlike some other operating systems!

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[-] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 months ago

i like the names they're cute, i just wish they would attach vesion numbers to the names in official docs because it is a specific hell trying to figure out what release is what version without having a master look up table to consult.

[-] bilouba@jlai.lu 5 points 2 months ago

Isn't KDE "Kommon Desktop Environment" in reference to CDE "Common Desktop Environment" ?

[-] superkret@feddit.org 12 points 2 months ago

The name KDE was intended as a wordplay on the existing Common Desktop Environment, available for Unix systems.[6] CDE was an X11-based user environment jointly developed by HP, IBM, and Sun through the X/Open consortium, with an interface and productivity tools based on the Motif graphical widget toolkit. It was supposed to be an intuitively easy-to-use desktop computer environment.[7] The K was originally suggested to stand for "Kool", but it was quickly decided that the K should stand for nothing in particular. Therefore, the KDE initialism expanded to "K Desktop Environment" before it was dropped altogether in favor of simply KDE in a rebranding effort in 2009.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE

(TIL the creator of KDE studied at the same university as me!)

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[-] eRac@lemmings.world 56 points 2 months ago

Similarly, VLC names their releases after Discworld characters. It's a fun way to make major versions feel like more than just a number increment.

[-] clb92@feddit.dk 15 points 2 months ago

The Vorbis audio codec was also named after Vorbis from Small Gods, the 13th Discworld book.

[-] caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 months ago

That's contested but still very cool (and the people who disagree are wrong)

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[-] richieadler@lemmy.myserv.one 4 points 2 months ago

I love that Theora is called that after the controller in Max Headroom played by Amanda Pays.

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[-] IrritableOcelot@beehaw.org 11 points 2 months ago

For anyone else who was wondering, it's major releases only, and so far it's been:

  • The Luggage
  • Twoflower
  • Rincewind
  • Weatherwax
  • Vetinari

Not sure Havelock would look kindly at being left til 5th, but you can't please everyone.

[-] JetpackJackson@feddit.org 8 points 2 months ago

Huh TIL! That's cool

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[-] corvus@lemmy.ml 39 points 2 months ago

How many years until they run out of characters?

[-] Charger8232@lemmy.ml 49 points 2 months ago

Plenty, as well as the upcoming release of Toy Story 5.

[-] jwt@programming.dev 15 points 2 months ago

Oh they should definitely choose Rocky as name for the next Debian release.

[-] superkret@feddit.org 22 points 2 months ago

That would probably cause confusion with Rocky Linux when googling.

[-] jwt@programming.dev 13 points 2 months ago

Yes that was the point.

[-] TheImpressiveX@lemmy.ml 15 points 2 months ago

And if they ever run out of Toy Story characters, the Marvel universe has thousands of other characters...

Not to mention other Pixar film characters.

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[-] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 5 points 2 months ago

Especially when you realise main releases happen every five years, or so

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[-] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 39 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Unstable branch is always Sid, 'cause he's so unstable. They just changed experimental to rc-buggy.

I know you named Sid, but it's a rolling release so it never gets a new name.

[-] The_Zen_Cow_Says_Mu@infosec.pub 27 points 2 months ago

unfortunately there's no rhyme or reason to the naming. which came first: bookworm, buster, or bullseye? They should just use numbers.

[-] superkret@feddit.org 22 points 2 months ago

Still better than Ubuntu's Horny Herring naming scheme.

[-] embed_me@programming.dev 15 points 2 months ago

But to its credit its alphabetical

[-] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 5 points 2 months ago

And memorable!

[-] gencha@lemm.ee 3 points 2 months ago

And has been for so long, they already went through it once

[-] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 months ago

I actually like Mint's naming scheme, of alphabetical women's names that end in an a sound. Only one problem: They decided to go with the minor upgrade cycle during Mint 17. The 17th letter is Q. I'm frankly surprised they were even able to think of "Quiana." That's why the rest of the 17s were R names, Rafaela, Rebecca etc. so now they're off by one.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 19 points 2 months ago

They do

[-] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago

Not in the apt sources list they don't. It's very annoying.

[-] deltapi@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

You can use version numbers, but it's on you to change them when new point releases drop.

https://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/Debian12.6/

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[-] DarkMetatron@feddit.org 9 points 2 months ago

Yeah, they should have used the names in alphabetical order, like Ubuntu with their codenames.

[-] gencha@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months ago

Numbers give the wrong impression that one version follows another. Debian release channels exit alongside each other individually. Giving the release channels names helps to make that distinction. It also makes for an easy layout of packages in APT repositories.

Sid is and always has been Sid. If you were to assign numbers, what number should replace that name? There are perfectly working labels for release channels and there is no reasonable replacement.

[-] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 20 points 2 months ago

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1053/

[-] lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 4 points 2 months ago

Not sure how relevant it is, but it's an absolutely fantastic outlook on life

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[-] art@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago

The unstable is named Sid, after the kid next door who liked to blow up toys.

[-] Cargon@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 months ago

R releases all have code names that are Peanuts references, like "Bunny Wunnies Freak Out".

[-] westyvw@lemm.ee 9 points 2 months ago

I ran Sid for years, I knew what it was named for and that was cool.

Lately though I have been wondering if they are going to run out of characters? Maybe it's time to latch onto something else? I don't know..

[-] saigot@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 months ago

Disney releases new movies with new characters pretty quickly. I don't think they have even exhausted the first movie yet.

[-] emhl@feddit.org 9 points 2 months ago

Their mailing lists used to be hosted by pixar as well

[-] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 months ago

how long until debian runs out of names and has to be "finished"

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this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2024
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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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