Finux

Finux is the name used by Neal Stephenson in Cryptonomicon denoting an operating system written by Finnish people. The name is a thinly-veiled reference to Linux, originally written by Helsinki native Linus Torvalds.

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Mr. Stephenson states on his web page that the reason for the name change was:

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:Since Finux was the principal operating system used by the characters in the book, I needed some creative leeway to have the fictitious operating system as used by the characters be different in minor ways from the real operating system called Linux. Otherwise I would receive many complaints from Linux users pointing out errors in my depiction of Linux. This is why Batman works in Gotham City, instead of New York—by putting him in Gotham City, the creators afforded themselves the creative license to put buildings in different places, etc.

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Neal Stephenson: Neal Stephenson (b. October 31, 1959 in Fort Meade, Maryland) is known primarily as a science fiction writer in the postcyberpunk genre with a penchant for diverting into explorations of mathematics, currency, and the history of science. He also writes non-fiction articles about technology in publi...

Cryptonomicon: Cryptonomicon is a sprawling novel by Neal Stephenson that is more a combination of historical fiction and contemporary techno-thriller than the science fiction of Stephenson's earlier works. It follows two parallel sagas: that of cryptographers during World War II attempting to crack Axis codes (s...

Operating system: In computing, an operating system (OS) is the system software responsible for the direct control and management of hardware and basic system operations. Additionally, it provides a foundation upon which to run application software such as word processing programs and web browsers....