Blog Post
Finnix Codenames
- Posted by Ryan Finnie on May 5, 2006, 12:26 am
Article posted on May 05
Having a high version number just isn’t enough. All of the cool distros have codenames, so I decided to jump on board. Finnix is not cool enough to have a codename such as Oscillating Ocelot; instead, I will be using places in Wisconsin, my original home state. There is certainly enough to choose from, with over 2000 cities, towns and villages in the state. However, I figured I should stick with places that 1) I’ve heard of, and 2) can be pronounced with relative ease. That means no Oconomowoc, Trempealeau or Nasewaupee (yes, those are all real).
First up is Pulaski, a village of about 3000, about 30 minutes outside Green Bay (my hometown). Pulaski is famous for polka, and every year hosts Polka Days. Pulaski is also the location of the first modem bank set up at the ISP I used to work for. (I still have the number memorized after all these years, 414-822-6382, though the area code has changed since then.)
[*] Finnix dev (Pulaski) ready; 357 packages, 98M compressed
- Posted in Development, Finnix
Personally I find these codenames an annoyance. Even that I don’t know much about redhat version history, I can make an educated guess about relation of 7.2 to 5.4. What clues give me “dapper drake” or “marvelous mucus”?
Same goes for display size codenames. 1024×768 I can classily easily, LWUXGA or what silly names the pr guys create I don’t can remember. The so called arabic numbers were a great update to roman numbers. Codenames are worse than roman numbers.
I think “#495″ actually has a pretty good point. Names can be a good deal more confusing than numbers. However, you can get the best of both worlds. Just do a name and a number. That way when actually referring to it, it’s easier to remember the name, but, when you need to know which is which you can look at the number.