• ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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    4 days ago

    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.

    • Tai@mander.xyz
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      3 days ago

      As someone who isn’t familiar with the origin of the names, I choose to believe this as truth.

    • dadarobot@lemmy.sdf.org
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      3 days ago

      Linus didnt name it after himself. he wanted to call it freax or something, and the guy hosting the repo hated that name, so called it Linux instead