Terminological inquiry/survey: How shall we refer to the OS and its versions?


porg

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I propose to first freely discuss the issue, thereby get an overview of opinions and suggestions, and then either get a reasoned / authoritative answer from an expert or if the outcome is rather undecided, conduct a democratic poll on this, to eventually have a terminological standard.


1) If we talk/write about the OS of the Pandora, a uniquely recognize-able name is desire-able! Is there already one agreed one? I don't see that yet! Searching the boards, brings 105 results for the term "Angstrom" and 64 for "Pandora OS", and other references too. Quite undecided. No dominant term yet.


2) I yet have not identified what is the (short!) syntax/scheme for refering to a certain version of that OS in contexts such as the forum, game specifications/requirements, issue tracker, etc. What is it? And if there is no standard yet, what should it be?


My opinions/reasoning:


Ad 1) Angstrom is the base, but then again there are enough Pandora specific changes/additions, that make this OS deserve its own name, also easing clear identification. I propose to call it simply "Pandora OS", rather than containing Angstrom in the name, which would only make it lengthy/complicated. Of course in the documentation/info/legalstuff/etc the relation to Angstrom is mentioned and honored, but the OS name should be plain and simple. The only openly question to me within that logic is wether to name it "Pandora OS" or "PandoraOS" (written as one word), the first being the aesthetic winner, the second the uniquely identifying winner, especially if you consider web search, where the term "Pandora" alone, refers to many other entities/products/services/etc, "PandoraOS" however would be quite a clear association.


Ad 2) I would propose to simply use the "number dot number dot …" notation (1.2.3) but then the question is, what is what in this scheme? So far I have come along "Release number", "Hotfix number", "Alpha number", not knowing wether there are other used or intended scheme/number parts. For reasoning in the discussion, we can use the Wikipedia article on: Software versioning
 
I propose to first freely discuss the issue, thereby get an overview of opinions and suggestions, and then either get a reasoned / authoritative answer from an expert or if the outcome is rather undecided, conduct a democratic poll on this, to eventually have a terminological standard.


1) If we talk/write about the OS of the Pandora, a uniquely recognize-able name is desire-able! Is there already one agreed one? I don't see that yet! Searching the boards, brings 105 results for the term "Angstrom" and 64 for "Pandora OS", and other references too. Quite undecided. No dominant term yet.


2) I yet have not identified what is the (short!) syntax/scheme for refering to a certain version of that OS in contexts such as the forum, game specifications/requirements, issue tracker, etc. What is it? And if there is no standard yet, what should it be?


My opinions/reasoning:


Ad 1) Angstrom is the base, but then again there are enough Pandora specific changes/additions, that make this OS deserve its own name, also easing clear identification. I propose to call it simply "Pandora OS", rather than containing Angstrom in the name, which would only make it lengthy/complicated. Of course in the documentation/info/legalstuff/etc the relation to Angstrom is mentioned and honored, but the OS name should be plain and simple. The only openly question to me within that logic is wether to name it "Pandora OS" or "PandoraOS" (written as one word), the first being the aesthetic winner, the second the uniquely identifying winner, especially if you consider web search, where the term "Pandora" alone, refers to many other entities/products/services/etc, "PandoraOS" however would be quite a clear association.


Ad 2) I would propose to simply use the "number dot number dot …" notation (1.2.3) but then the question is, what is what in this scheme? So far I have come along "Release number", "Hotfix number", "Alpha number", not knowing wether there are other used or intended scheme/number parts. For reasoning in the discussion, we can use the Wikipedia article on: Software versioning

Right now it's called Zaxxon.
 
My understanding is that the naming scheme for OS versions is going in reverse alphabetical order, and using the names of classic games. As DarkCheetah says above, the current release is known as "Zaxxon", with the next one due (as far as I know) to be "Yars' Revenge", and so on. (Quietly hoping for "M" to be "Mega Man", myself, but I can fully understand that not happening. :lol: )


So, if you're using Zaxxon and have applied, say, Hotfix 5 (which introduced the Hotfix information to the boot-up progress screen), then that's how you'd refer to it.
 
Pandora OS can also be abbreviated to POS. Make of that what you will! But it probably makes it unsuitable for a commonly accepted name.


I feel somewhat newbish not knowing what Zaxxon is.
 
For comparison what I am up to, an real world example:


1) Apple's OS is called "Mac OS X".


2) You can refer to its versions by their release names, i.e. Mac OS X Lion (equivalent Pandora OS Zaxxon) or numerically, i.e. Mac OS X 10.7, or if you want to be more specific a certain major.minor number like Mac OS X 10.7.1


So again:


1) What do we call Pandora's OS?


2) What short references do we use? Pandora OS 1.2.3 … ?
 
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So X will be Xevious perhaps...holy crap my mind is swimming with old school game names now.
 
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For comparison what I am up to, an real world example:


1) Apple's OS is called "Mac OS X".


2) You can refer to its versions by their release names, i.e. Mac OS X Lion (equivalent Pandora OS Zaxxon) or numerically, i.e. Mac OS X 10.7, or if you want to be more specific a certain major.minor number like Mac OS X 10.7.1


So again:


1) What do we call Pandora's OS?


2) What short references do we use? Pandora OS 1.2.3 … ?

OS Zaxxon/HF5 etc?
 
"OS Revision/HFx" not such a good naming scheme, as it will often change.


Proposing Pandora OS number.number.number , but yet not knowing what part equates to which number. Info still appreciated.
 
"OS Revision/HFx" not such a good naming scheme, as it will often change.


Proposing Pandora OS number.number.number , but yet not knowing what part equates to which number. Info still appreciated.
Why not? it works for Microsoft, with their named systems and service packs...
 
I personally think the current naming scheme is good.


Zaxxon Hotfix 6 alpha 4


That sounds pretty sexy to me..
 
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The kernel is called Linux. The distribution is called Angstrom. Our current release version has codename Zaxxon. The latest hotfix is number 6 alpha 4.
 
Guys, you all don't get me.


Changing release names as OS names? Better one steady OS name.


And my 2nd inquiry was for a short form, honestly writing "Pandora OS Zaxxon Hotfix 6 alpha 4" each time is cumbersome, if "Pandora OS 1.6.4" would do it.
 
Guys, you all don't get me.


Changing release names as OS names? Better one steady OS name.


And my 2nd inquiry was for a short form, honestly writing "Pandora OS Zaxxon Hotfix 6 alpha 4" each time is cumbersome, if "Pandora OS 1.6.4" would do it.
For comparison what I am up to, an real world example:


1) Apple's OS is called "Mac OS X".


2) You can refer to its versions by their release names, i.e. Mac OS X Lion (equivalent Pandora OS Zaxxon) or numerically, i.e. Mac OS X 10.7, or if you want to be more specific a certain major.minor number like Mac OS X 10.7.1


So again:


1) What do we call Pandora's OS?


2) What short references do we use? Pandora OS 1.2.3 … ?
1) Pandora's "OS" is called Angstrom.


2) We refer to its version by it's release name Zaxxon. Minor version numbers are possible if required Hotfix 6 alpha 4, or shorter: Zaxxon 6 alpha 4.


I don't see a real difference here.
 
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Guys, you all don't get me.


Changing release names as OS names? Better one steady OS name.


Why?


EDIT: and again, how is this any different from (for example) "Win XP SP3"

And my 2nd inquiry was for a short form, honestly writing "Pandora OS Zaxxon Hotfix 6 alpha 4" each time is cumbersome, if "Pandora OS 1.6.4" would do it.

So it becomes Zaxxon HF6A4


The naming convention may have developed somewhat organically, but it's worked well enough up to now. I don't see a pressing need to change it.


-Neelix
 
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Actually I think it's been a long while that different distributions all have their "pet names" for each major update, ala Debian's "sarge, etch, lenny, squeeze" (from Toy Story). The only thing I would suggest myself is perhaps to drop the white space and special characters in the names to avoid having to quote ("") it or backslash the chars every time they are used in some script (or when ' I ' have to use it, at least) :p


Since the Pandora was conceived with retro-gaming in mind I find using retro-game names as it's OS's "pet name" quite fitting, even if I'm not quite the gamer myself.
 
I kind of agree that the Pandora OS may have enough differences to qualify its own name beyond "Angstrom", in the same way that Ubuntu is its own flavour based on Debian, and Fedora is based on Red Hat. Not quite so extreme, but it's getting there.
 
*ponders* well... if we must have a different distribution name... and being that the basis is Ångström... how about we call our version Anders? :lol:


- Neelix
 
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