just wondering why most of Linux distros and derivatives have something to do with animals in their names? We have Gnu, Tux, Ubuntu release code names among others. any special reasons?

GNU - Gnu is Not Unix. This in turn spells GNU so the animanl adopted as the mascot.

Tux - The name of the Linux Penguin, see here: The History of Tux the Linux Penguin or here: Tux for how it came about.

As for *buntu I don't know why they use animal names for their releases.

If anyone knows the reason, please share the info.

GNU - is an accident of the English Language. Having opted to name the OS with a recursive acronym, Richard wanted the name to point out that it was not Unix, while paying a homage to unix.

So, you need to come up with an English word ending in NU (Not Unix) or INU (Is Not Unix), then make the acronym fit. The best he managed was GNU's Not Unix.


Tux was arrived by a convoluted approach to finding a mascot. Mascots tend to be animals.


Ubuntu's association with animals is a holdover from a joke. Note that the pre-releases are usually just referred to by their first names - Jaunty etc. The first one was considered "pretty warty" which automatically leads to toads. The next one was hoary.


Distros like Gentoo - well, it's a penguin and the mascot is...


However, the vast majority of distros are not named for animals.

Red Hat
Fedora
SUSE
DSL
PCLOS
Mint
Mandriva
etc.

Prominent apps like firefox, seem to support the perception - but iceweasel is so called because of it's relation to firefox. Lynx is a pun on links but still - OOo is not an animal, neither is GIMP or Evolution. So really, on balance, the observation does not hold up.

Nice of you to enlighten me. Thanks.

Thanks for this, it helps to have more precise info.

Why animals? Hmmm.......let's see:

Plants?
Can you imagine installing a Linux distro named "pansy" or "tulip"? Or, for that matter "mushroom", "carrot". No---plants are not going to work.

Humans?
(Yes, I know that "human" is a special case of animal.)
Would I install a distro named "Fred"? ....Maybe, but--with my luck--people would start releasing distros named "George Bush", or "Nancy Pelosi". So much for humans......

Minerals
"Diamond Linux" has a nice ring to it, but some social misfit would surely come out with "lead" or "soapstone".....

Clearly, animals are the only way to go........

Slightly off topic: Do you think we will ever see these releases from Redmond.. Dirty Windows or Broken Windows?

Characters from Toy Story (i.e. Debian's release names) are also acceptable .

Well, we could have a Badger distro with first a Mushroom release and then a Snake release.

The release from Redmond would surely be called 'frosted windows' as it hides so much from you!

Well - "Debian" means "Deborah and Ian's GNU/Linux Distribution.
"Linux" means "Linus' Unix".

Plants - Mint, Mandrake... more common than you think. Also food, fictional characters, wierd acronyms, company names...

I have not seen a distro named for a regexp though, or an all-your-base joke.

[edit: All Your Computers are Belong to Us, and All your Data are belong to us" are the secret development release codes for Windows 7 and Google OS respectively.]

From distrowatch - the top distros and what they are named for, and their logos.

Ubuntu - named for a social philosophy, it has an abstract logo.
(Uses animals for development releases - point releases are named after the date.)

Fedora - clothing
(development releases have names from a wide variety of sources fedora core = yarrow for eg. which is a plant.)

SUSE - named after the tech company that produced it.
(S.u.S.E. means Software und System-Entwicklung - it's logo is a chameleon called "geeko".)

Mint - plant

Debian - peoples names

Mandriva = Mandrake (plant) + Conectiva (a company name)

PCLinuxOS - what it is

Puppy - Animal

Sabayon - food
(has a taloned foot as a logo)

CentOS - dunno, the name apparently means "hundredth part Operating System"

Arch - architecture

MEPIS - deliberately meaningless word
(this name arose from miscommunication)

Slackware - joke/irony (IIRC: refers to it's original reception by the community it derived from. Apparently they thought that the change from a.out to ELF binaries was pretty slack.)

FreeBSD - what it is (not Linux: BSD = Berkely Software Distribution")

Kubuntu - see Ubuntu

KNOPPIX - persons name (Knopper's GNU/Linux)

Vector - geometry

Zenwalk - philosophy

Damn Small - irony: refers to the project goals.

Tiny Core - what it is

PCBSD - what it is

Gentoo - animal

Dream - mental state

... that is the top 23 at time of writing. Look at the variety.

dunnoe

missing;
Welcome to LQ, but I'm ignoring your post......We'll look forward to your first question.

Simon*;
I'm almost afraid to ask where you got all that really useful information.....

I thought a Mandrake was an adult male duck......

By your logic, what's Mandriva? Ah, wait: Male chauffeur!!

Debian releases are named after characters from Toy Story... Etch, the etch-a-sketch is current, Sarge, the plastic soldier was previous. Sid, the kid next door who broke toys, is always the testing release.

CentOS is Community ENTerprise OS

Etch isn't Stable, Lenny is stable and Squeeze is testing - still Toy Story characters though

Mandrake is a root herb AFAIK, BTW


And I have moved this to General as it isn't a technical discussion.