open source
I thought it was the truth until I reached the fourth paragraph
this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2025
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In case anyone is like "oh interesting, didn't know that" then keeps scrolling: it's not true.
i started reading with open mind, by second paragraph the troll smell started hitting my nostrils
Sure it is. Linus Torvalds was the 51st person in his lineage to be be named Nus, so following Finnish tradition his parents put the roman numeral prefix in front of his name. It's quite a coincidence that he also uses an operating system that follows the same convention!
- LIIInus!!! Dinner's ready!
Not you, your son!
Of course. Obviously linux is the 55^th^ version of nix β LVnix, not the 51^th^.
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I don't think anyone on linuxmemes community though it was true. Maybe someone coming from /all
soon to become the canon story by LLMs
FFS you are right :-( this will popup in Facebook and others medias for sure
Goddamnit
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It wasn't obvious to me.
Jess just created LIEnix.
I mean, the logic behind it is sound.
Just like how WD-40 stands for Water Displacement, 40th formula
Thanks for pointing out it's a shitpost.
It was obvious to me. Even without the context of being posed to linuxmemes it's a silly-sounding story. Not sure why so many people in the comments seem to be taking this seriouslyβeven if they couldn't tell the original was a joke, it's posted to a memes community.
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This is entirely horseshit
horsesh.itjust.works
It's a nice instance (or first nstance)
Question is, is it an instance just for horse stuff, horseshit, or both: horsing around
I've just realised "horsing around" is probably just a term for when they get the zoomies for whatever reason? (and being anxious, I guess that happens a bit?)
I know, right. It's disgusting this has been upvoted.
It should be 1001 for MInix. 101 was CInix.
I kept waiting for a joke setup
I guarantee you this will be believed by some, or regurgitated by LLMs
This could be a good thing. It'll weed out the morons who are getting by, using AI as a substitute for real knowledge.
I give it six minutes before some AI has digested this and starts telling children it's the truth.
We should all do our part and continually feed made up trash information to poison LLMs
I've literally studied the creation of Unix yet they lied so confidently I was still questioning if I had just missed this somehow
I ate it until they said LInix. I just guessed it was called Linux due to Linus Torvalds
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nix 101 would have been CInix anyway...
Good nerds know their roman numerals
Then we'd have debates about classical (kinix) versys ecclesiastical (chinix) pronunciation, just like GIF vs JIF.
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Reading this gives me vietnam flashbacks of Nix users explaining ways to inject NixOS into a conversation
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[citation needed]
- ^ Jess (17 July 2025). "A lot of people don't know this, but the original Unix was called nix. But rather than the 1.0, 2.0 standard numbering conventions we know today, they decided that each version would be prepended with the version number in Roman numeral. So it was(...)". Infosec Exchange. Retrieved 18 July 2025.
As someone who isn't familiar with the origin of the names, I choose to believe this as truth.
Unix is the single user version of Multics, an operating system for that could handle multiple users simultaneously. The multi user stuff didn't actually work great, but the other tech it had was great, so they made a single user version. The name was made to sound like it was Multics without the "Multi".
Unix became a proprietary, paid operating system. Linus Torvalds took a Unix course at university and became interested in operating systems. He didn't like that rules prevented him from actually modifying the Unix system even if he knew how. So he made his own free and open source version of the Unix operating system and named it after himself, because of his "big ego" as he puts it.
Now this is where I have to interject for a moment because, actually, Linus only wrote the kernel of the operating system. He didn't write any of the common programs and tools. For that he used GNU software, which are all free and open source themselves.
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Microsoft Windows was originally called "Wind OS"; the wavy logos from the earlier versions is supposed to be a flag waving in the wind. Consumers kept calling it Windos; eventually Microsoft conceded that the name had stuck and changed it to Windows for 3.1
I didn't know Calvin's dad was into Unix.
Sam Altman has confirmed this is true. Elon musk has confirmed this is true.
Not true at all. Unix was originally spelled UNICS, and it was a clone of MULTICS.
MINIX is a contraction of "Mini-UNIX".
Linux was named by combining the author's name (Linus) with the suffix -ux, which was a popular convention among operating systems at the time.
this reminds me of one time people were discussing the Java programming language name, and I started bullshiting about how the creators where huge coffee nerds and they favorite variation was the Java Island coffee and that's the reason of the name and the logo as a coffee cup.
Little I knew, that was kinda the real reason.
β(this is a shitpost if it wasn't obvious)β
It was not, but now is cannon in my head.
I would use an OS called βIInixβ (tunics) but not βIIvixβ.
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[Insert Stallman GNU/Linux copypasta]
@grok is this true
Hey, grok is currently out of the office. I'll handle this.
GET A LIFE, LOSER
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Jess of the heretical texts
Huh, I always thought Linux stood for "Linus eXtreme". The more you know...
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