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.
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.
The Vorbis audio codec was also named after Vorbis from Small Gods, the 13th Discworld book.
That’s contested but still very cool (and the people who disagree are wrong)
The Xiph.org foundation themselves say that’s where the name came from.
Right, it’s the Ogg part I was thinking of.
I love that Theora is called that after the controller in Max Headroom played by Amanda Pays.
Does that make Ogg Vorbis some kind of twisted shipping?
Ogg was apparently not named after Nanny Ogg, no matter how awesome that’d be.
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.
Came to say this, I remember when I first looked at VLC version and saw Rincewind (I think it was), and was like “this has to be a Discworld reference”
How many years until they run out of characters?
Plenty, as well as the upcoming release of Toy Story 5.
Oh they should definitely choose Rocky as name for the next Debian release.
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.
They’ll be fine. Remember when we all joked about Covid-19 Omega variant a few years ago?
Especially when you realise main releases happen every five years, or so
That’s what I thought. I think the most popular name they have actually used is Jessie.
And when will they release ‘Hooker’?
Debian 69?
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.
They should’ve moved to mountains a while ago, before Apple did it. After all a distro as stable as Debian is the only one deserving rock solid stuff.
“Debian Zugspitze” nah I think they’re fine
Perfection :D
Zugspitze
Debian Everest, Debian Fuji, Debian Blanc, Debian K2, all great names.
Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1053/
Not sure how relevant it is, but it’s an absolutely fantastic outlook on life
I agree. I thought everyone already knew this was what Debian release names were based on.
I’m one of the lucky 10.000!
It just never clicked for me…
unfortunately there’s no rhyme or reason to the naming. which came first: bookworm, buster, or bullseye? They should just use numbers.
They do
Not in the apt sources list they don’t. It’s very annoying.
You can use version numbers, but it’s on you to change them when new point releases drop.
Why cant I just use /Debian12/ ?
It should be the default. The silly names should just be for marketing and used for nothing that matters.
Its used for the repos
Yes, that is my complaint, thanks.
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.
The unstable is named Sid, after the kid next door who liked to blow up toys.
R releases all have code names that are Peanuts references, like “Bunny Wunnies Freak Out”.
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…
Disney releases new movies with new characters pretty quickly. I don’t think they have even exhausted the first movie yet.
how long until debian runs out of names and has to be “finished”
I would love nothing more than for a piece of software to be “finished”, like the old days. This is why I don’t play mobile games, cause every time I want to kill five minutes while waiting in a line or something, I first have to download a 1GB+ update that will take an hour to download on my shitty prepaid line.
this is why i’ve been really enjoying games like minecraft and factorio, minecraft updates regularly but the server and instance that i play is still just 1.16.5 so i don’t even have to worry about updating it.
Similar thing for factorio, although the updates are generally very infrequent, and large updates are massive feature updates. like the upcoming 2.0 expansion, outside of that i just dont really play games much lol.
Obviously a matter of taste and not trying to insult anyone but I never saw the appeal of the Toy Story movies and, adding the Steve Jobs link to Pixar, this is the ONE thing I never liked about Debian
Other than that I used it for YEARS with no issues whatsoever. Debian is honestly rock solid. I only gave it up when I built a bleeding edge machine (it was bleeding edge for a whole 2 months maybe? hehehe) and I did not trust myself modding it enough to allow for super fresh drivers and other software.
I am now on Garuda Linux which is pretty awesome but I still miss good, solid, old Debian