Talk:Tux

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Contents

[edit] Quote

I think the article would be do well to include this quote. --Jonathan Drain 11:26, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Other mascots

How about a link to the FreeBSD Devil? I have no idea what his name is though.

I've drawn quite heavily from http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,42209,00.html in the creation of the article... perhaps someone would like to just check it's OK? I've tried to keep it within the bounds of fair use... can someone check, please? --Dave McKee

It looks fine to me. --MRC
The FreeBSD daemon is name "chuckie". Links to other mascots (e.g GNU, the OpenBSD blowfish, etc) would be interesting. Start a new category if there isn't one already. --Imroy
The FreeBSD Daemon name ISN'T Chuck. As stated in the FreeBSD.org Faq, his name is simply "FreeBSD Daemon" or "beastie"[1]SncBlue 02:03, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
I would add a link to ThinkGeek, since they carry a variety of Tux-related products, but it seems like that would be violating some general rule of the Wikipedia, since ThinkGeek is a commercial enterprise. Anyone have thoughts on this? --bdesham
Yes. No linkspam. Nothing sets Thinkgeek apart from the rest. --Maru (talk) 18:38, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Attitude

Added word disingenuously to describe attitude that no one noticed that penguin decor resembles a tuxedo. --Ortolan88


[edit] Why Tux?

What does the line in the 2nd para mean : "This may have been why a penguin was chosen, though." It was added by User:LittleDan (on 07:13 March 22). Does he want to say the penguin was chosen as the logo after the name Tux was chosen as the name for the logo ? Wasn't it the other way round, first the penguin was chosen and then a name given for it. --Jay 10:04, Sep 12, 2003 (UTC)

I read somewhere, I can't remember where, that they chose a the name because it was Torvalds UniX, and then made it a penguin because it looks why they're wearing tuxedos. I may be wrong. If so, please delete it. --LDan 00:46, 14 Sep 2003 (UTC)
My Tux web page covers all of the origin stuff in great detail. We could move all of that stuff over here if there is some kind of consensus that it would be appropriate: [2] SteveBaker 22:30, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image caption

The stuff about the concepts behind tux being developed on mailing lists isn't mentioned in the article itself. Is this actually true? --Lupin 12:18, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

That's what the artist says. See external link cited in Tux article [3]. I didn't go back to the lkml to actually review what was said. --Kop 03:07, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I think the captions on the Tux image in Linux and Tux would be better switched, as the Tux article caption is more about Linux and vice versa. But I've had too much back and forth about the Linux caption to want to make the change myself. --Kop 03:07, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] A new tux?

Lots of recent images seem to be based on overlord's South-Park-style tux (see the link at the bottom of the page for a translated CrystalXP forum).

Is this becoming a new unofficial standard?

[[4]]

Since 2002 I'm seeing this Tux [5], I think was introduced by Red Hat.
Remeber this [6] has nothing Tux or nothing related with Linux but an old QuickTime mascot. --Rick Browser 03:09, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Video games list

IIRC, the first Tux game ever was "Tux: A Quest For Herring", http://tuxaqfh.sourceforge.net/ (I wonder why SteveBaker didn't write about it). When I first played it many years ago, it also contained a "racing" level made for some kid contest (afair), which was a real inspiration behind Tux Racer (is it worth noting here? Or in TuxRacer?). Tux was called "Tuxedo T. Penguin" in tux-aqfh. --Lam 14:11, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Tux the Penguin: A Quest for Herring - aka Tux_AQFH - (which I did indeed write) was certainly the first 3D game about Tux - I kinda doubt it was the first game with Tux in it. I thought SuperTux was the first - but I can't find any reference to SuperTux before April 2000. The announcement of Tux_AQFH was on Slashdot on May 6th, 1999. I didn't write about this because it's generally considered bad form for Wikipedians to write about themselves (WP:NOR, etc). Tux_AQFH is no longer supported - I've learned a lot from my mistakes on that game and it's easier to toss it out and write something new than to fix it's problems. However, it got 50,000 downloads in 24 hours when we announced it on Slashdot - it was subsequently ported to BSD, Windows, Mac, SunOS and Irix. I also wrote TuxKart (which was much more successful and fun to play IMHO - I think that's the 'racing' game you are thinking of that may arguably have inspired TuxRacer. I worked heavily with the TuxRacer team providing OpenGL advice, etc - so I was pretty upset when it went closed-source. My son and I are currently writing a 3D game about Lemurs (The Lemur of Lima - yes, we know Lemurs come from Madagascar - but there's a plot point here!) it will have a cameo part for Tux and will be OpenSourced when it gets to a point where we've stopped having too much fun writing it and could use some help! If you have any questions, you know where my talk page is. SteveBaker 15:03, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

The list is almost all redlinks, which tells me they're not notable. And why should it include games with random other penguins? I'll revert to myself, but just once, since it's not a big deal. But seriously, it looks really bad. Melchoir 21:53, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Agree a whole lot. It's pointless to link to non-existing articles, and I don't think I've heard of any of those games anyway. Haakon 22:36, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I can agree with not linking to them - but keeping the list together seems worthwhile. I've heard of most of them - and they are mostly Tux games. I'll try to find the time to check out each one and ensure it meets the criteria of having Tux in the game and I'll remove the Wiki links and replace them with website links. SteveBaker 23:35, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Isn't Tux Racer now a go-karting game, Its apparent that the game which involves sliding down icy hills on his belly is now known as PlanetPenguin Racer (I play it very often). See: http://projects.planetpenguin.de/racer/. 13enzoate 02:01, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
No - I don't think so. The history of TuxRacer is that Jasmin Patry started working on it as a college project in 1999, he did a GPL'ed version in 2000 and continued to maintain and enhance it until August 2001 when he decided to fork the code and take his copy closed source and try to sell it for profit. His company was called 'Sunspire Studios' which no longer appears to exist. Their website is being used for advertising and all of the links there to downloads, FAQs, etc just take you to more adverts. Meanwhile, when the package forked, Nathan Matias maintained and somewhat enhanced the GPL'ed version - calling it 'OpenRacer'. That effort seems to have fizzled within maybe 6 months - although you can still download an play that version. Nowadays we have 'PlanetPenguinRacer' - also derived from that same source code. None of these versions have any GoKarts in them - they feature Tux sliding down snowy/icy courses collecting herring along the way.
The game with the GoKarts is my own 'TuxKart' (which pre-dates TuxRacer but is often confused with it). This was a project I wrote with my son (who designed some of the race tracks and who'se actual 5th grade Math classroom is featured in one of the races because we did a presentation at his school for his math class and we decided to suprise them by using a very detailed model of the actual classroom we were giving the presentation in. Anyway - that project was finished as far as I was concerned when the HappyPenguin.com 'Game Of The Month' (GotM) team decided to put a month of intensive effort into improving TuxKart. This sounded like a good idea - but in fact they totally screwed up the entire thing and ended up with a game that wasn't even playable. I backed out all of their changes and restored the project to it's original state. Meanwhile, the remaining GotM guys forked my code and made a new project called 'SuperTuxKart' - which fizzled very soon after without leaving anything playable. However, just the other day I was approached by someone who wants to try to revive SuperTuxKart and make it work. I've declined to participate in that because I have other OpenSource projects that matter more to me now. However, I wish them well - TuxKart is long overdue for a polish since graphics cards are about 1,000 times faster than they were when TuxKart was written!
So - there's the story. TuxRacer == Penguin sliding down hill on ample stomach. TuxKart == Penguin driving GoKart. Many derivatives and spin-offs of both. SteveBaker 05:02, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes I took a look and found the go-karting game to be called TuxKart, thanks for clearing it up. 13enzoate 14:40, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
People confuse my game (TuxKart) with TuxRacer all the time. It would have been better if TuxRacer had been given a clearer name (Tux Downhill Racer or something). SteveBaker 17:01, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
I added a URL for Tux Typing and a short description from the home page. 13enzoate 03:24, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Resnick/Halliday

So my physics teacher made the assertion today that the reason (or a reason) they chose a penguin was because of the frequent use of penguins in this physics book. I doubt it and I can't find anything about it, but can anyone clarify this? Crito2161 04:33, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I've been involved with Linux since 1994, remember the original mascot discussions and have researched the topic. Despite this I've never heard

any claim Tux had anything to do with a Physics text. Robert Brockway 13:47, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

No - it definitely nothing to do with a physics book. Linus Torvalds has been asked this question a bazillion times - in his first reply (that I can find) dated 12th May 1996, he said:
"Linus likes penguins". That's it. There was even a headline on it in some Linux Journal some time ago (I was bitten by a Killer Penguin in Australia - I'm not kidding). Penguins are fun."
Linus really likes Penguins - that's the bottom line. You can read all of those ancient emails surrounding the matter on my private Wiki. SteveBaker 04:06, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] PNG vs. SVG

The SVG version is not the original version. This page is meant to show the original version. The SVG version is not identical to the original version. Therefore we should not use the SVG version. Instead, we will use the original version in the PNG format. Thank you. --Ysangkok 20:17, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tux from the rear deserves mention

Kindly mention something about http://slaout.linux62.org/tux/freebsd_tux.jpg which I find just hilarious, but not apparently some people. Jidanni 16:15, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure it won’t hurt (BSD and/or FLOSS) to add the picture to Wikipedia, even to an article like Operating system advocacy, Fanboy, or Software wars. Also, I think it’d be good to find the author’s name to credit the image to. --AVRS 18:13, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
There are a million pictures of Tux with which we could illustrate this article most of them, better than this one - but pictures are not here as some sort of archive - that's not what Wikipedia is for. (WP:NOT is quite clear on this point). The idea is to use images amplify the message delivered in the text. I don't see that this one adds anything to the story - it's just vulgar and offensive for the sake of it. It quite incorrectly depicts Linux and BSD as rivals - when in fact the two communities cooperate to a spectacular degree and there is a huge overlap in the two groups of people. Worse still, the BSD deamon is NOT free of copyright - you can't just post it anywhere you like - getting permission from whoever painted the image isn't enough - as you can see in BSD Daemon you also need permission from Marshall Kirk McKusick to use the image (unlike Tux, for example). So no - you are not allowed to add this image to ANY article in Wikipedia without doing quite a lot of leg-work - and even then, it would be very inappropriate in this article. SteveBaker 03:57, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, what I meant. --AVRS 11:13, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, but I love the way he grits his teeth. Jidanni 13:32, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, I just meant mention it, not "use" it. And gritting one's teeth might not mean rivalry but mere temporary uncomfort. But of course I did not interview the subjects. ☺ Jidanni 05:54, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Penguin?

WTH? What is with this penguin thing? I am looking for an article about the article of clothes, dammit! Da REAL Tony Clifton! 18:06, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:QuickTime penguin.png

Image:QuickTime penguin.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 19:46, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Happy feet

just thinking. I have gotten more than once the comment, why have you got happy feet toy on your PC. And I think that I am not the only victim of ignorant people (which in turn thought I am retarded as I have not seen a kids film). is there any reference or something funny to put in this article about that? --Squidonius (talk) 12:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tux in UserFriendly

I just searched through userfriendly.org and, except for a fantasy (Star Wars parody) flashback in late '98, Tux is not a part of User Friendly. I'm removing that reference. --Mlvezie (talk) 21:11, 16 April 2008 (UTC)