List of Computer Term Etymologies - U

U

• Ubuntu Linux — a Debian-based Linux distribution sponsored by Canonical Ltd.

Derived from ubuntu, a South African ideology.

• Unix — an operating system.

When Bell Labs pulled out of the MULTICS (MULTiplexed Information and Computing System) project, which was originally a joint Bell Labs/GE/MIT project, Ken Thompson of Bell Labs, soon joined by Dennis Ritchie, wrote a simpler version of the operating system for a spare DEC minicomputer, allegedly found in a corridor. They needed an OS to run the game Space War which had been compiled under MULTICS. The new OS was called UNICS — Uniplexed Operating and Computing System by Brian Kernighan. An alternative spelling was Eunuchs, it being a sort of 'reduced' MULTICS. It was later shortened to Unix.