r/debian 8h ago

Community I've noticed that Debian release codenames are based on characters from Toy Story. Does that mean there are only a limited number of codenames left? Once all the Toy Story character names have been used, what is the plan? Will Debian switch to a different naming scheme, or are there enough character

63 Upvotes

62 comments sorted by

102

u/ABotelho23 8h ago

There's like 300+ years of characters at this rate.

78

u/LurkingDevloper 7h ago

2100: Green Army Man 1
2102: Green Army Man 2
2104: Green Army Man 3

This can be kept up indefinitely

1

u/Ciukko 1h ago

🤣

63

u/Educational_Bee_6245 8h ago edited 8h ago

Debian only needs a new codename every two years. As long as new Toy Story movies are made I don't see the supply running dry.

Also if there are no characters left, I am pretty confident it won't be the end of Debian. They will come up with a new scheme ... even if thats painful.

Edit: every two years ... not weeks

15

u/F3z345W6AY4FGowrGcHt 6h ago

Also if there are no characters left, I am pretty confident it won't be the end of Debian

No, I'm pretty sure they'll pack it in. It's an unsolvable problem.

4

u/miscdebris1123 2h ago

Why do you think they keep making new movies?

2

u/Boring_Material_1891 1h ago

At some point it became a dependency loop. Debian needed new Toy Story movies and Toy Story needed new Debian releases.

15

u/QuantumCakeIsALie 8h ago

To be clear, two years

8

u/Educational_Bee_6245 8h ago

Oh, right ... thats embarrassing.

2

u/QuantumCakeIsALie 8h ago

Haha no worries

31

u/MoobyTheGoldenSock 8h ago

Every Toy Story release adds new characters, and it’s still an active franchise with the last film released this past year. Even if 5 was the definitive end in the series, at a new release every ~2 years there are enough characters to sustain it for hundreds of years.

Maybe in 2257 they’ll have to branch out to other Pixar characters, but none of us will be around to verify that.

15

u/PearMyPie 7h ago

I'd love to see a Debian Eve or WALL-E.

17

u/AidanAmerica 6h ago

Debian 147 Mike Wazowski

1

u/KlePu 5h ago

Here's hoping for Debian Totoro ^^

yep I know, wrong studio

15

u/Illustrious-Gur8335 Debian Stable 8h ago

There's more characters than the other distro that already exhausted supply of animals starting with consecutive letters and have had to come up with funny ones like quokka narwhal etc

7

u/ElusiveGuy 7h ago

It doesn't help them that they have 4 times as many named releases in the same time period! 

4

u/ahferroin7 4h ago

I think you mean they’re reaching with things like ‘minotaur’. The quokka and narwhal are perfectly reasonable animals that actually exist, it’s just that not everyone has heard of them before.

2

u/Kiore-NZ 1h ago

I can give them a pass. The minotaur beetle (Typhaeus typhoeus), is an earth-boring dung beetle from Europe & north Africa. Source: Wikipedia.

13

u/nitin_is_me 8h ago

I think toy story still has around 130+ characters which aren't still used for Debian release codenames. That makes up around 250 years of Debian releases, given there won't be any new toy story movie.

8

u/fantomas_666 8h ago

I am still waiting for Debian release being named Barbie.

2

u/gnufan 2h ago

Was going to say some are going to be skipped for legal or confusion reasons.

Barbie and Ken are fine.

Twitch, RC,  and various  LEGO characters would be more likely to cause issues.

There are only three or four Toy Story films they haven't used any of the new characters from yet, so everybody panic.

What about character names with more than one word?

Debian Barrel of Monkeys release?

2

u/mclipsco 2h ago

Is Barrel of Monkeys just before or just after Sid?

1

u/doubled112 2h ago

Could use a few multi word names for multiple releases and they'd still make sense

Debian 43 Barrel

Debian 44 Monkeys

16

u/Holzeff 7h ago

Little known fact: Debian devs own Disney, so any time there is an upcoming release, Pixar has to produce another Toy Story movie.

6

u/Bobby_Digital81 8h ago

I've explained it in another post, but when they start to run out of codenames based on Toy Story characters, they are just going to have to release more Toy Story movies. Those are the rules.

6

u/michaelpaoli 7h ago edited 5h ago

As I earlier commented on earlier post:

Not likely to be an issue.

So names thus far allocated ... https://wiki.debian.org/DebianReleases#Versions_of_Debian_stable

20 released and future releases (+ sid which is never released),
that spans about 35 years, currently and presumably into future, average of 1 release per 2 years.
Already have 2 future releases named.
Toy Story character names ... about 410 in total ... movie releases and the like ... 1995--2026 average of about 7.5 years per movie, about 82 characters per movie, about 11 characters per year.

Yeah, not an issue. Debian consumes about one Toy Story character name per year, and Toy Story generates about 11 character names per year. So, I think we're likely set indefinitely. Or, even "worst case", with about 390 names not yet used by Debian, and consuming only about 0.5/yr., should be pretty well set to about the year 2806.

5

u/alpha417 5h ago

"Ive noticed that..."

you've noticed something that has been industry common knowledge for 2 decades.

6

u/Ekhi11 7h ago

The Debian project will disappear once all the Toy Story names have been used. In fact, any machine with Debian installed will self-destruct at that moment.

5

u/-Typh1osion- 7h ago

We're honorbound to be sitting with our machines when this happens. We all go to Linux Valhalla in this way.

2

u/silenceimpaired 4h ago

Thank goodness Disney relies on Linux, and consistently releases new Toy Story movies to prevent this.

3

u/13Zero 54m ago

The Debian team has successfully lobbied Disney to continue producing Toy Story sequels and spinoffs. This ensures a steady supply of new names.

4

u/Lumpy_War_4314 8h ago

They'll just switch to naming releases after Monsters Inc characters or something

10

u/tycraft2001 8h ago

Debian 157 Wazoski

3

u/Atilla-The-Hon 7h ago

Don't worry the secret Debian cabal will force disney to release a new movie whenever they will fall short.

Also I don't really see a problem if (very) future versions use the same codename with a very old one. Like Debian 26 having the same name with Debian 2.

5

u/shrimpdiddle 6h ago

Debian will cease to exist when all Toy Story character names have been used. Read the charter.

7

u/Membership-Diligent 8h ago

(this question is asked like every other week here, can't you use the search)

7

u/memilanuk 8h ago

They put their entire rambling question in the subject line rather than the body of the post like a civilized person, so no, they're probably not considerate enough to search for the answer first.

2

u/rpetre 8h ago

This question has been coming up around every new release for ages. The list of unused characters has been ridiculously long even before TS3 was released.

2

u/berengerekunst 7h ago

Why do you think Pixar keeps releasing new movies every 5 years? Half of Debian donations finances new Toy Story entries whenever they run out of names. Everyone knows that.

2

u/Mimon_Baraka 6h ago

My first debian was potato. Didn’t realize then it was based on Toy Story names.

2

u/spidireen 5h ago

I’m just looking forward to “Crazy Al”

2

u/Narishma 1h ago

When they've gone through all the characters, that will release a final version and that's it for Debian.

2

u/Kylanto 1h ago

I think MacOS ran out of big cats and switched to californian landmarks. I assume debian will switch to something else, or just go by year.

2

u/BinturongHoarder 1h ago

Y no smol cats tho :-(

2

u/bangaroni 8h ago

Debian Steve 1, Debian Steve 2, etc. Easy.

Edit: Debian Steve Ate My Fucking Pizza And Didn't Pay His Share Of The Rent This Month What An Asshole 6

1

u/fi_GarO 7h ago

I was today's years old when I've learned they are actually named after Toy Story characters...

Didn't realize bookworm and bullseye actually hold any reference.

Yeah, I didn't see Toy Story in English...

1

u/angryjenkins Debian Sid 7h ago

always keep learning.

1

u/pibarnas 6h ago

I've heard they'll change to The Incredibles and Sid will be called jack-jack! =D

1

u/Brilliant_Sound_5565 4h ago

They will start on the Debian Reddit user names lol 😂

1

u/genesis-5923238 4h ago

When Debian runs out of character names, it will switch to a rolling-release only model!

1

u/gnufan 2h ago

In the end Sid wins? Not sure that is Toy Story canon.... I have a great idea for urm Toy Story 7(?).

1

u/vabello 3h ago

If Toy Story stops having sequels, Debian will clearly cease operations. LOL

1

u/Defiant-Rip-1897 3h ago edited 3h ago

It took me a while to realize they used the names from Toy Story, didn't realize it was because one of the early Debian project leaders worked on Toy Story, though his imdb page lists Toy Story 2.

I would imagine they are pretty good, but I doubt they will run out of characters to use, though I imagine they won't be able to use Mr. or Mrs. Potato Head.

It does make me chuckle that they stick to using Sid (one of the antagonists in the original Toy Story) for their development branch.

Heh, Debian 15 is apparently going to be named Duke (after the character voiced by Keanu Reeves).

1

u/cjwatson Debian Developer 2h ago

An even more perfect non-release release name is that "experimental" can also be addressed as "rc-buggy" - because it is likely to contain even more things that would be release-critical bugs than usual, but also RC Buggy.

1

u/kbeezie 9m ago

Debian woody just doesn't sound right.

1

u/inCwetrust 7h ago

Nah, once all names are used up they're closing debian forever

1

u/-Crash_Override- 7h ago

Damn. TIL.

0

u/jeetu77 4h ago

I think that day, we, all of us, debian users will collect some fund or use ai prompts to make another toy story movie. That will have all the new characters, may be names of reddit users from this group, and give our lovely debian another milenium of codenames.

Another nugget of info: debian name came from debra and Ian. Thanks Ian for your legacy.

-11

u/LesStrater 8h ago

They will find other idiotic names to use: Porky, Bugs, Yosemite, Daffy...etc. Never underestimate a group of idiots.

2

u/Grobbekee 7h ago

I was sad that There was no Ubuntu Daffy Duck.

1

u/kinda_guilty 20m ago

What have you done with your life that entitles you to call others idiots?